diff --git a/docs/e2store.md b/docs/e2store.md
index 10dedbfbf..6dd428cbb 100644
--- a/docs/e2store.md
+++ b/docs/e2store.md
@@ -17,10 +17,15 @@ The header corresponds to an SSZ object defined as such:
 ```python
 class Header(Container):
     type: Vector[byte, 2]
-    length: uint48
+    length: uint32
+    reserved: uint16
 ```
 
-The `length` is the length of the data that follows the header, not including the length of the header itself. For example, the entry with header type `[0x22, 0x32]`, the length `4` and the bytes `[0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04]` will be stored as the byte sequence `[0x22, 0x32, 0x04, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04]`.
+The `length` is the length of the data that follows the header, not including the length of the header itself.
+
+The `reserved` field must be set to `0`.
+
+For example, an entry with header type `[0x22, 0x32]`, length `4` and the content `[0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04]` will be stored as the byte sequence `[0x22, 0x32, 0x04, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04]`.
 
 `.e2s` files may freely be concatenated, and may contain out-of-order records.
 
@@ -40,7 +45,7 @@ def read_entry(f):
   if not header: return None
 
   typ = header[0:2] # 2 bytes of type
-  dlen = struct.unpack("<q", header[2:8] + b"\0\0")[0] # 6 bytes of little-endian length
+  dlen = struct.unpack("<I", header[2:6])[0] # 4 bytes of unsigned little-endian length
 
   data = f.read(dlen)
 
@@ -67,7 +72,6 @@ def print_stats(name):
       print("type", k.hex(), "bytes", v[0], "count", v[1], "average", v[0] / v[1])
 ```
 
-
 ## Writing
 
 `e2s` files are written record-by-record starting with a version record. Files may be concatenated freely, meaning that the version record may appear multiple times in the file and a single file may have multiple versions.
@@ -340,3 +344,9 @@ In the end though, the applied block state is used throughout in the protocol -
 ## How can block roots be accessed without computing them?
 
 Each era file contains a full `BeaconState` object whose `block_roots` field corresponds to the block contents of the file. The easiest way to access the roots is to read the "header" of the `BeaconState` without reading all fields.
+
+## Why is length `uint32`?
+
+Offsets in `SSZ` are `uint32` thus from a practical point of view, any one SSZ object may generally not exceed that size.
+
+A future entry type can introduce chunking should larger entries be needed, or spill the remaining size bytes into `reserved`, effectively turning the encoding of the length into a fictive `uint48` type.
diff --git a/ncli/e2store.nim b/ncli/e2store.nim
index a820337d1..71986eee9 100644
--- a/ncli/e2store.nim
+++ b/ncli/e2store.nim
@@ -20,8 +20,9 @@ const
   SnappyBeaconState* = [byte 0x02, 0x00]
 
   TypeFieldLen = 2
-  LengthFieldLen = 6
-  HeaderFieldLen = TypeFieldLen + LengthFieldLen
+  LengthFieldLen = 4
+  ReservedFieldLen = 2
+  HeaderFieldLen = TypeFieldLen + LengthFieldLen + ReservedFieldLen
 
   FAR_FUTURE_ERA* = Era(not 0'u64)
 
@@ -71,10 +72,14 @@ proc append(f: IoHandle, data: openArray[byte]): Result[void, string] =
   ok()
 
 proc appendHeader(f: IoHandle, typ: Type, dataLen: int): Result[int64, string] =
+  if dataLen.uint64 > uint32.high:
+    return err("entry does not fit 32-bit length")
+
   let start = ? getFilePos(f).mapErr(toString)
 
   ? append(f, typ)
-  ? append(f, toBytesLE(dataLen.uint64).toOpenArray(0, 5))
+  ? append(f, toBytesLE(dataLen.uint32))
+  ? append(f, [0'u8, 0'u8])
 
   ok(start)
 
@@ -137,9 +142,9 @@ proc readHeader(f: IoHandle): Result[Header, string] =
     typ: Type
   discard typ.copyFrom(buf)
 
-  # Cast safe because we had only 6 bytes of length data
+  # Cast safe because we had only 4 bytes of length data
   let
-    len = cast[int64](uint64.fromBytesLE(buf.toOpenArray(2, 9)))
+    len = cast[int64](uint32.fromBytesLE(buf.toOpenArray(2, 5)))
 
   # No point reading these..
   if len > int.high(): return err("header length exceeds int.high")
diff --git a/ncli/e2store.py b/ncli/e2store.py
index f7825aa09..dc3109325 100644
--- a/ncli/e2store.py
+++ b/ncli/e2store.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ def read_entry(f):
   if not header: return (None, None)
 
   typ = header[0:2] # 2 bytes of type
-  dlen = struct.unpack("<q", header[2:8] + b"\0\0")[0] # 6 bytes of little-endian length
+  dlen = struct.unpack("<I", header[2:6])[0] # 4 bytes of unsigned little-endian length
 
   data = f.read(dlen)