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Papa Mufflon
Papa Mufflon

Reputation: 20080

Filename too long in Git for Windows

I'm using Git-1.9.0-preview20140217 for Windows. As I know, this release should fix the issue with too long filenames. But not for me.

Surely I'm doing something wrong: I did git config core.longpaths true and git add . and then git commit. Everything went well. But when I now do a git status, I get a list of files with Filename too long, for example:

node_modules/grunt-contrib-imagemin/node_modules/pngquant-bin/node_modules/bin-wrapper/node_modules/download/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/node_modules/combined-stream/node_modules/delayed-stream/test/integration/test-handle-source-errors.js: Filename too long

It is quite simple to reproduce for me: just create a Yeoman web application with the Angular generator ("yo angular") and remove node_modules from the .gitignore file. Then repeat the aforementioned Git commands.

What am I missing here?

Upvotes: 1601

Views: 1519586

Answers (20)

Saikat
Saikat

Reputation: 16900

On Windows:

  1. Run Git Bash as administrator (right-clicking the app shortcut will show the option to Run as Administrator )
  2. Run the following command: 
    git config --system core.longpaths true

Note: if step 2 does not work or gives any error, you can also try running this command:

git config --global core.longpaths true

Read more about git config here.

Upvotes: 286

Dheeraj Bhaskar
Dheeraj Bhaskar

Reputation: 19039

You can try to temporarily move the local repository (the entire folder) to the root of your drive or as close to the root as possible.

Since the path is smaller at the root of the drive, it sometimes fixes the issues.

On Windows, I'd move this to C:\ or another drive's root.

Upvotes: 8

Naor Yael
Naor Yael

Reputation: 139

Please follow the steps below to fix "Filename is too long" in Git.

  1. Update to the newest version of git. If you have already upgraded, skip this step.
  2. Navigate to your project folder.
  3. Open the Git Bash and run it as an administrator.
  4. To enable long paths in Git Bash, use "git config --system core.longpaths true"

Upvotes: 0

Swayamshree Mohanty
Swayamshree Mohanty

Reputation: 378

This is worked for me on Windows:

Start-Process -Verb RunAs "git" "config","--global","core.longpaths","true"

Upvotes: 0

iveqy
iveqy

Reputation: 24431

Git has a limit of 4096 characters for a filename, except on Windows when Git is compiled with msys. It uses an older version of the Windows API and there's a limit of 260 characters for a filename.

So as far as I understand this, it's a limitation of msys and not of Git. You can read the details here: https://github.com/msysgit/git/pull/110

You can circumvent this by using another Git client on Windows or set core.longpaths to true as explained in other answers.

git config --system core.longpaths true

NOTE: due to https://github.com/desktop/desktop/issues/8023#issuecomment-515115353, Github Desktop (and potentially other Git GUIs as well) will read the --global config but not the --system config

Git is build as a combination of scripts and compiled code. With the above change some of the scripts might fail. That's the reason for core.longpaths not to be enabled by default.

The windows documentation at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=cmd#enable-long-paths-in-windows-10-version-1607-and-later has some more information:

Starting in Windows 10, version 1607, MAX_PATH limitations have been removed from common Win32 file and directory functions. However, you must opt-in to the new behavior.

A registry key allows you to enable or disable the new long path behavior. To enable long path behavior set the registry key at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\LongPathsEnabled (Type: REG_DWORD)

Appendix - Doing it all from PowerShell - the copy-paste edition

This is a Windows specific issue, hence the solution below should work in most Windows versions, new and old.

Open a PowerShell window/console, and run the following:

  • Setting Registry Value:
# Check LongPathsEnabled settings
Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem -Name LongPathsEnabled

# If 0, set it to 1 - This is a System wide configuration
# This will fail if you do not have Admin priveleges
# Changes to CurrentControlSet\Control take effect after a system restart
$MyPSexe = Get-Process -PID $PID | % Path
Start-Process -Verb RunAs $MyPSexe "-c","Set-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem -Name LongPathsEnabled -Type DWord -Value 1"
  • Setting git config --system - System wide for all Windows users:
Start-Process -Verb RunAs "git" "config","--system","core.longpaths","true"
  • Alternative - non admin option: Setting git config --global - User's global settings:
& git config "--global" core.longpaths true

Upvotes: 2345

sparkym3
sparkym3

Reputation: 13427

You should be able to run the command

git config --system core.longpaths true

from an Administrator command prompt.

Or add it to one of your Git configuration files manually to turn this functionality on, once you are on a supported version of Git. It looks like maybe 1.9.0 and after.

Upvotes: 1330

Md. Shahariar Hossen
Md. Shahariar Hossen

Reputation: 1715

  • Download & Install Git bash from here: https://git-scm.com/download/win
  • Run the git bash gui as administrator and run this command: git config --system core.longpaths true
  • Now clone any repository.
  • If the problem is not fixed try this command: git config --global core.longpaths true
  • If it does not help try restarting the windows.

Upvotes: 21

A v o c a d o
A v o c a d o

Reputation: 566

This worked for me

terminal image

Run as terminal as administrator. And run the command below.

git config --system core.longpaths true

Upvotes: 43

Sagiruddin Mondal
Sagiruddin Mondal

Reputation: 5787

This might help:

git config core.longpaths true

Basic explanation: This answer suggests not to have such setting applied to the global system (to all projects so avoiding --system or --global tag) configurations. This command only solves the problem by being specific to the current project.

EDIT:

This is an important answer related to the "permission denied" issue for those whom does not granted to change git settings globally.

Upvotes: 392

Richard
Richard

Reputation: 2110

TortoiseGit (Windows)

For anyone using TortoiseGit for Windows, I did this:

(1) Right-click on the folder containing your project. Select TortoiseGit -> Settings.

(2) On the "Git" tab, click the button to "Edit local .git/config".

(3) In the text file that pops up, under the [core] section, add: longpaths = true

Save and close everything, then re-try your commit. For me, this worked.enter image description here

I hope this minimizes any possible system-wide issues, since we are not editing the global .gitconfig file, but rather just the one for this particular repository.

Upvotes: 15

Niroshan Ratnayake
Niroshan Ratnayake

Reputation: 3801

In Windows, you can follow these steps which worked for me.

  1. Open your cmd or git bash as an administrator
  1. Give the following command either from cmd or git bash which you ran above as an administrator
git config --system core.longpaths true

  1. This will allow accessing long paths globally

  2. And now you can clone the repository with no issues with long paths

Upvotes: 8

kartick shaw
kartick shaw

Reputation: 1013

In a windows Machine

Run Command Prompt as administrator then run below command

git config --system core.longpaths true

Upvotes: 3

amalik2205
amalik2205

Reputation: 4172

git config --global core.longpaths true

The above command worked for me. Using '--system' gave me config file not locked error

Upvotes: 18

Arpit Aggarwal
Arpit Aggarwal

Reputation: 29316

Executing git config --system core.longpaths true thrown an error to me:

"error: could not lock config file C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\mingw32/etc/gitconfig: Permission denied"

Fixed with executing the command at the global level:

git config --global core.longpaths true

Upvotes: 36

Julian Veerkamp
Julian Veerkamp

Reputation: 1780

You could also try to enable long file paths.

If you run Windows 10 Home Edition you could change your Registry to enable long paths.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem in regedit and then set LongPathsEnabled to 1.

If you have Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise you could also use Local Group Policies.

Go to Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Filesystem in gpedit.msc, open Enable Win32 long paths and set it to Enabled.

Upvotes: 19

augustowebd
augustowebd

Reputation: 382

If you are working with your encrypted partition, consider moving the folder to an unencrypted partition, for example a /tmp, running git pull, and then moving back.

Upvotes: 1

Janderson Silva
Janderson Silva

Reputation: 1817

The better solution is enable the longpath parameter from Git.

git config --system core.longpaths true

But a workaround that works is remove the node_modules folder from Git:

$ git rm -r --cached node_modules
$ vi .gitignore

Add node_modules in a new row inside the .gitignore file. After doing this, push your modifications:

$ git add .gitignore
$ git commit -m "node_modules removed"
$ git push

Upvotes: 39

Yash
Yash

Reputation: 7064

Create .gitconfig and add

[core]
longpaths = true

You can create the file in a project location (not sure) and also in the global location. In my case the location is C:\Users\{name}\.

Upvotes: 139

James Green
James Green

Reputation: 1837

I had this error too, but in my case the cause was using an outdated version of npm, v1.4.28.

Updating to npm v3 followed by

rm -rf node_modules
npm -i

worked for me. npm issue 2697 has details of the "maximally flat" folder structure included in npm v3 (released 2015-06-25).

Upvotes: 2

Watchmaker
Watchmaker

Reputation: 5308

To be entirely sure that it takes effect immediately after the repository is initialized, but before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out, it is safer to use it this way:

git clone -c core.longpaths=true <repo-url>

-c key=value

Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this takes effect immediately after the repository is initialized, but before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out. The key is in the same format as expected by git-config1 (e.g., core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for the same key, each value will be written to the config file. This makes it safe, for example, to add additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.

More info

Upvotes: 68

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