Error 0x80010135 Path too long When Extracting ZIP file

When you extract a .zip file in Windows, the action gets interrupted, and you see the error “Path too log” – Error code 0x80010135.

Interrupted Action

An unexpected error is keeping you from copying the file. If you continue to receive the error, you can use the error code to search for help with this problem.

Error 0x80010135: Path too long

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Also, enabling long paths via the registry (“LongPathsEnabled“) doesn’t resolve the issue.

If you attempt to open the zip archive by double-clicking to view its contents, nothing may happen.

Cause

The error 0x80010135 occurs if the file path is longer than 260 characters (which is the MAX_PATH limit in Windows). The file path includes the drive letter, colon, backslash, name components separated by backslashes, and a terminating null character.

You may be wondering why the following LongPathsEnabled registry value (setting it to 1 and rebooting Windows) did not help. (Ref: Maximum Path Length Limitation – Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
"LongPathsEnabled"=dword:00000001

By setting the registry key LongPathsEnabled to 1, most of the common Win32 file and directory functions will be able to use file paths exceeding 260 characters. However, with the option enabled, Explorer still fails to use long file paths. This is easily noticed when you unzip a compressed (zipped) folder file whose path exceeds 260 characters. Explorer is not ‘long file path’ aware. This is by design, as there are a lot of legacy APIs and DLLs that win32 applications depend on.

Workarounds

To workaround the issue, you have the following options:

1. Use 7-Zip, WinRar, or any other third-party decompression tool.
2. Copy the zip file to the drive’s root directory, and unzip it to a folder under the drive’s root directory. Then, move the files/folder manually to the original path.
3. If the path exceeds the MAX_PATH limit by a small margin (e.g., 263 chars), then you can rename the zip file to a shorter name and unzip its contents.

I hope that helps!