diff --git a/readthedocs/projects/migrations/0040_increase_path_max_length.py b/readthedocs/projects/migrations/0040_increase_path_max_length.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..37778f670
--- /dev/null
+++ b/readthedocs/projects/migrations/0040_increase_path_max_length.py
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+# Generated by Django 1.11.20 on 2019-02-23 15:05
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+
+from django.db import migrations, models
+
+
+class Migration(migrations.Migration):
+
+    dependencies = [
+        ('projects', '0039_update-doctype-helptext'),
+    ]
+
+    operations = [
+        migrations.AlterField(
+            model_name='importedfile',
+            name='path',
+            field=models.CharField(max_length=4096, verbose_name='Path'),
+        ),
+    ]
diff --git a/readthedocs/projects/models.py b/readthedocs/projects/models.py
index 9b8e32d2e..b5fca92d2 100644
--- a/readthedocs/projects/models.py
+++ b/readthedocs/projects/models.py
@@ -1089,7 +1089,11 @@ class ImportedFile(models.Model):
     )
     name = models.CharField(_('Name'), max_length=255)
     slug = models.SlugField(_('Slug'))
-    path = models.CharField(_('Path'), max_length=255)
+
+    # max_length is set to 4096 because linux has a maximum path length
+    # of 4096 characters for most filesystems (including EXT4).
+    # https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/issues/5061
+    path = models.CharField(_('Path'), max_length=4096)
     md5 = models.CharField(_('MD5 checksum'), max_length=255)
     commit = models.CharField(_('Commit'), max_length=255)
     modified_date = models.DateTimeField(_('Modified date'), auto_now=True)