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OneDrive for Business File Size, Number, Type & Character Limits and
Restrictions
Introduction
If you work with a lot of documents, you can probably
appreciate the appeal of syncing your documents to One
Drive For Business content to your computer. Doing so brings the following benefits:
1. 24/7 access to your documents.
2. Read and edit while youre offline. Everything syncs with One Drive For
Business whenever you go back online.
3. Browser-free interaction with your documents.
4. Opening your documents in a Web browser is fine, but working directly in your
file system is usually more convenient.
To sync a library: Go to the library > click Sync at the top of the page > click Sync
Now in the OneDrive for Business wizard.

Keep in mind the following restrictions and limitations related to syncing SharePoint
libraries.
How many items can I sync?

You can sync up to 20,000 items in your OneDrive for Business

library, including folders and files.

You can sync up to 5,000 items in other SharePoint libraries, including folders
and files. These are the libraries you find in various SharePoint sites, such as
team sites and community sites.

Whats the size limit for downloading files?

In any SharePoint library, you can download files of up to 2 GB.

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Whats the character limit for files and folders?

These limits apply to files and folders that you add to a synced library folder for
uploading to SharePoint. In normal practice, youre unlikely to hit these limits. But
Ill mention them here, just in case:

File names can have up to 128 characters

Folder names can have up to 256 characters

Folder name/file name combinations can have up to 260 characters

If you have a file, folder, or combination that exceeds the limit, the item will remain
in the synced library folder, and an error icon will appear on the item to tell you that
theres a sync problem.
Folder Names and File Names

Do not use: # % & * : < > ? / { | } ~

Do not use the period character consecutively in

For example, file..name.docx
is invalid.

You cannot start a file name with the period character

File names cannot be longer than 128 characters

You cannot use the period character at the end of a file

Many other symbols are not recommended such as

$^()-_=+[]`! (other
international currency symbols and international
symbols should be
avoided in site names, but some are more acceptable in
file names. Ascii is
preferred when possible.

the middle of a file name.

name

In addition, file names and folder names may not end with: (Many of these are
international symbols)
Invalid file types
You cannot upload OneNote files, or files with a *.tmp or *.ds_store extension.
Additionally, you cannot upload desktop.ini, thumbs.db, or ehthumbs.db.
OneDrive for Business library limits and workarounds
The OneDrive for Business library in all SharePoint Online plans in Office 365 comes
with 1 TB of storage per user.
If youre concerned about exceeding the storage capacity of your OneDrive for
Business library, consider the following options:

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Instead of uploading documents to your OneDrive for Business library, upload

them to libraries on team sites or community sites youre following, and in
which you have
Contribute permission for the libraries.

Periodically review the documents youre storing in your SkyDrive Pro library,
and delete documents you no longer need. Note that when you delete
documents, you also need to empty the recycle bin if you also want to
reclaim the storage space.

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Characters to Avoid in Directories and

Filenames
Your web files will be viewed by numerous users who use a wide variety of
operating systems (Mac, PC, and Linux for instance) and devices (desktops, tablets,
and smartphones are some examples). Therefore, it is essential to play it safe and
avoid common illegal directory and filename characters.
Naming conventions are important in web folders as well as for downloadable files
such as PDFS, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets.
Do not use any of these common illegal characters/symbols:
# pound

< left angle bracket

> right angle
% percent
bracket
& ampersand
* asterisk
{ left bracket
? question mark
} right bracket
/ forward slash
\ back slash
blank spaces
Also, keep these rules in mind.

$ dollar sign

+ plus sign

! exclamation point ` backtick

single quotes
double quotes
: colon
@ at sign

| pipe
= equal sign

Dont start or end your filename with a space, period, hyphen, or underline.

Keep your filenames to a reasonable length and be sure they are under 31
characters.

Most operating systems are case sensitive; always use lowercase.

Avoid using spaces and underscores; use a hyphen instead.

Bad filenames:

F&A Costs.html

my PDF file#name.pdf

Web Browsers see:

F&amp;A%20Costs.html

my%20PDF%20file%23name.pdf

Good filenames:

fa-costs/index.html

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my-pdf-file-name.pdf

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Limitations of OneDrive
Maximum file size for OneDrive is 10 GB. If your file size exceeds 10 GB, you
may see one of the following errors:
o

"This file is too big to upload"

"Reduce the size of this file to upload it to"

Certain characters are not allowed in file or folder names. These are explained
in the previous pages.

Files or folders in OneDrive cannot begin or end with a space, end with a
period, or begin with two periods

Files in OneDrive cannot include any of the following character strings: AUX,
PRN, NUL, CON, COM0, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7,
COM8, COM9, LPT0, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9

For OneDrive desktop, the path of the file, including the file name, must be
less than 255 characters.
Example file path:
C:\Users\\Pictures\Saved\2014\January\Holiday\NewYears\Family

OneDrive cannot be accessed via Outlook Web App 'Light' - a work around is
to install and use the desktop version of OneDrive.

Known Issues

External users will not be able access a OneDrive folder shared with
them
If you share a folder from your OneDrive with an external user, the user will
get a mail notification. When the user clicks on the link in the email message
to access the folder, he or she will see a dialog box with an "access denied"
message. This dialog box will block the external user from accessing the
contents of the folder.
This issue does not affect if a site or document is shared with external users.
It only affects folder sharing with external users when the folder is in
OneDrive.
Workaround: Share individual files with external users instead of
folders