How to Shorten Path Length in Bitbucket Pipeline on Windows Runner to Avoid the 260-Character Limit?

[Yogesh Kumar]

Hello everyone,

I’m running a Bitbucket pipeline on a self-hosted Windows runner and facing an issue where the path length exceeds the 260-character limit. The error I’m getting is:

The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

One part of the path causing this issue is:

C:\atlassian-bitbucket-pipelines-runner\temp\3d11a41f-2e60-591a-a062-7bd73203596d\1722928878980

The numeric value (1722928878980) changes every time I start the runner, making it challenging to manage the path length.

Is there a way to shorten or control the path length in Bitbucket pipelines, especially for dynamically generated paths? How can I prevent this error from occurring?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Patrik S · Accepted solution]

Hello @Yogesh Kumar ,

and welcome to the Atlassian Community!

The 260 character limits is actually a limitation on the Windows environment itself. A few workarounds you may want to try are :

• Using a shorter base path (e.g. "C:\runners\")
• Change the default maximum characters in Windows See relevant links below
  • Microsoft Maximum File Path limitation
  • Windows default path length

I hope that helps! Let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you, @Yogesh Kumar !

Patrik S