relinking images by name from a folder on Illustrator 2018

Thanks for a solution, but i find it hideous that illustrator is I guess the only app which cant use update by folder or does relinking automatically like all other Adobe apps do. Ive seen people posting about this issue far back as 2010!!!! that's 10 years ago. Are they sleeping at Illustrator Dev team?!? Why don't all devs having global meetings to see if options from one app can go to an other. Lots of functions get added from one to other after many years. The development seems so backwards at times, so terribly slow

You can "package" your assets under the file menu to collect all assets in the same folder then you can chose your images in this folder and move them folder which you saved new illustrator file.

Reading your question again:

lilianec65023813  wrote Hello, I have a 50 pages Illustrator file full of different images linked.

I would suggest to use InDesign in the future for these type of documents.

Indesign was designed to handle multipage documents and handles linked files much (MUCH!) smarter than Illustrator.

Ton's suggestion is your best option however if you don't want to move all of the images to the new location of your Illustrator file, your only option would be to relink them manually.