diff --git a/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.test.ts b/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.test.ts
index c5693c4a0..fe590143a 100644
--- a/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.test.ts
+++ b/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.test.ts
@@ -121,6 +121,28 @@ describe('sharedViewLink', () => {
         );
     });
 
+    // A name can run to hundreds of characters, and encoding multiplies
+    // non-ASCII ones; the link exists to name the item, so it always does,
+    // however long — the length cap only limits how many more join it.
+    it('keeps the first item even when it alone outgrows the length cap', () => {
+        const long = `/alice/${UID}/${'\u5831\u544a'.repeat(120)}.pdf`;
+        const short = `/alice/${UID}/a.txt`;
+        expect(shareDeepLink('https://puter.com', long).length).toBeGreaterThan(
+            SHARE_DEEP_LINK_MAX_LENGTH,
+        );
+        expect(
+            new URL(
+                shareDeepLink('https://puter.com', long),
+            ).searchParams.getAll('shared'),
+        ).toEqual([long]);
+        // Nothing fits after it, and nothing later is taken instead.
+        expect(
+            new URL(
+                sharedViewLink('https://puter.com', [long, short]),
+            ).searchParams.getAll('shared'),
+        ).toEqual([long]);
+    });
+
     it('names an item once however often it was queued', () => {
         const path = `/alice/${UID}/a.txt`;
         expect(sharedViewLink('https://puter.com', [path, path])).toBe(
diff --git a/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.ts b/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.ts
index ffa77aa0b..193cb3be4 100644
--- a/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.ts
+++ b/src/backend/services/share/shareDeepLink.ts
@@ -62,9 +62,10 @@ export const SHARE_DEEP_LINK_ITEMS_LIMIT = 20;
 /**
  * How long a link may run, in characters. Somewhere past two thousand, older
  * mail clients cut a URL off or stop making it clickable — and this is the
- * button — so items are added only while the whole link stays within this. A
- * single item always fits: a username, a uuid and a filename come to a few
- * hundred, and it takes long names for the count above to matter first.
+ * button — so items are added only while the whole link stays within this. The
+ * first item goes in regardless: a link that names nothing is no better than
+ * the origin, and one long name (hundreds of characters, tripled by encoding
+ * when non-ASCII) is still the item the mail is about.
  */
 export const SHARE_DEEP_LINK_MAX_LENGTH = 2000;
 
@@ -84,7 +85,8 @@ export const sharedViewLink = (origin: string, paths: string[]): string => {
         if (params.length === SHARE_DEEP_LINK_ITEMS_LIMIT) break;
         const param = `${SHARE_DEEP_LINK_PARAM}=${encodeURIComponent(path)}`;
         const added = param.length + (params.length === 0 ? 0 : '&'.length);
-        if (length + added > SHARE_DEEP_LINK_MAX_LENGTH) break;
+        const overLength = length + added > SHARE_DEEP_LINK_MAX_LENGTH;
+        if (params.length > 0 && overLength) break;
         params.push(param);
         length += added;
     }