This is Deb with a short but very instructive Tech Tuesday Post. Recently my dear husband (DH for short–even though he’s not short) was helping a friend transfer her photographs to a new computer. Things were not going as planned in this project. Some files weren’t being copied to the new computer. After muttering some phrases like “$%#^!!” and “#)(|;*@,” he figured out the problem. Said Friend liked to create very descriptive file names like
This is a photo of the whole family-GeorgeJetson–HisBoyElroy-DaughterJudy-JaneHisWife-insertChopsticksMusicHere-DoNotForgetRosieTheMaid-AstroTheDog-MrSpacelyOfSpacelysSprockets- The-Jetsons-is-an-American-animated-sitcom-produced-by-Hanna-Barbera_ -1.jpg
Which is a perfectly acceptable name. However, when you move that file into a folder called something like “MyPhotos,” Windows goes on strike. Why? That file name has 255 characters (yes, spaces count as characters). But when you move it to a folder that contains 8 characters, you have exceeded the 256 character limitation on file and path length.
“But I have a Mac,” you might be thinking smugly to yourself. My file name limitation is much longer than Windows’ measly 256 characters. While this is true, some programs that run on both Windows and Mac platforms use the more limiting Windows naming convention. I’m thinking of you, Adobe Photoshop Elements.
So save yourself some future pain by limiting the length of your file and folder names. If you want more information on naming files, check out this article in the official blog of the Office of the Chief Records Office (OCRO) at the National Archives. (Speaking of long names!?!) If you want the long answer from our IT guy, Dave, read it here.
If you want to learn more about the Jetsons, click here.