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hunterh63283602
Participating Frequently
April 24, 2023
Open for Voting

Multiple file relink

  • April 24, 2023
  • 9 replies
  • 2399 views

I'm sure this has been posted before on here, but for visibility and emphasis how does AE not have a relinking system like Premiere after 10+ years?? I'm working on a particular project where despite all the assets being scattered across mutliple folders on a server, AE insists as relinking one by one. Most times I don't have this issue as it finds them on it's own, but for whatever reason it's going very slow, manually relinking file by file. This is on a collected project. 

Regardless of the reason or situation, it wouldn't be an issue if we had a relinking system like Premiere's file manager for footage. Is there some technical reason Adobe hasn't addressed or improved such an important function on large AE projects after a decade??

    9 replies

    Mike Choo
    Mike Choo
    Inspiring
    August 18, 2025

    +1 for adding the Premiere-style relinking interface, that's one of my favourite things in Premiere.

      J
      jona@jacknimble
      Participant
      August 18, 2025

      BUMPING this to hopefully get it in a new update!

      In Premiere Pro it's so much easier: Link media > Locate File > Search

      Please add it to Ae devs! 🙏

        Sterphy
        Sterphy
        Known Participant
        May 26, 2024

        Are you expecting Adobe to do anything that makes basic sense? 

          C
          chrisk29730602
          Participant
          May 24, 2024

          Been running into this issue today, no idea why the relink system in After Effects is so pathetic given Premiere works fine.

          H
          hunterh63283602Author
          Participating Frequently
          November 27, 2023

          Collecting to local storage is a good idea, unless you don't have an extra 200GB of room to collect to for giggles on C:, lol. 

            Warren Heaton
            Community Expert
            Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            July 5, 2023

            @hunterh63283602 

             

            Try collecting to local storage, opening the resulting project file to check links, and then copy it to the server.

             

            That's always worked well for me. 

            leakuslokus
            leakuslokus
            Inspiring
            July 5, 2023

            These are the things I dont get about the CC apps.
            What is the reason for Premiere having a perfectly fine re-linking system for 100s of files at a time and AE is just missing this function? I just don't see it.

              H
              hunterh63283602Author
              Participating Frequently
              April 27, 2023

              Double checked this again today and no, is set to All for collecting files. The collected file and folder are obviously moved over to a different machine where all the links sit in the singular "Footage" folder AE makes obviously, that seems to be where it gets hung up when bringing that project file back to the server and it prompts to link file by file since they're not in one big collected folder anymore. 

              Maybe that makes sense technically but I swore AE could search roots or something like Premiere to find associated files within a root (server) folder.

              Warren Heaton
              Community Expert
              Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              April 25, 2023

              Is Collect Source Files accidentally set to "None (Project Only)"?

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