Copy a file with a too long path to another directory in Python

Question

I am trying to copy files on Windows with Python 2.7, but sometimes this fails.

shutil.copyfile(copy_file, dest_file)

I get the following I

Answer 1

I wasn't sure about the 255 char limit so I stumbled on this post. There I found a working answer: adding \\?\ before the path.

shutil.copyfile("\\\\?\\" + copy_file, dest_file)

edit: I've found that working with long paths causes issues on Windows. Another trick I use is to just shorten the paths:

import win32api
path = win32api.GetShortPathName(path)