Participant

Question

InDesign Relink Search Do not find files on SMB share

Forum|Forum|5 days ago
July 24, 2026
4 replies
61 views

We're experiencing an issue when attempting to relink missing assets stored on an SMB network share.

Environment

Adobe InDesign (Latest Version)

Files stored on an SMB network share.

macOS (Fully up to date)

The Problem

When a linked file is missing and we choose Relink in InDesign, searching for the filename returns no results, even though the file exists on the SMB share.

However:

Finder can locate the file immediately.

Spotlight also finds the file without any issues.

Screenshot 1 Attached – InDesign Relink search returns no results

What We Have Tried

We found a script that can be run from within InDesign. When the script performs a search of the same SMB share, it successfully finds the missing files.

This suggests that InDesign itself can access the share, but the built-in Relink search is behaving differently from the script.

Script Details

Network issue accessing images | Community

Screenshot 2 Attached– Script successfully returns search results

Questions

Has anyone encountered this behaviour before?

We're looking for a solution that would allow InDesign's relink process to locate files on an SMB share. Possible solutions could include:

A preference or macOS setting we've overlooked.

An enhanced version of the script that could automate the relinking process after locating the files.

A third-party plug-in or utility that improves the Relink workflow with network shares.

All suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

eseipp

Participant

Also experiencing the same issue. Tried going back to ID 2025 and it was also happening there as well. PhotoShop and Illustrator still seem to work fine with relinking files. Only InDesign seems to be having this issue.

G

Greg HorsburghAuthor

Participant

Glad to hear I am not alone. We do have this raised with Adobe, although currently waiting for a call with the technical lead.

Using the base script in my original post. I have built one that will search and replace links, however, is quite slow.

I will update my post if I ever make it usable. Currently take 10 minutes to run through a cache file of about 7000 items.

G

Greg HorsburghAuthor

Participant

Hello Abhishek

Thank you for the reply. Answers below for you.

Versions:

All versions of software are latest production versions only. No prerelease or beta versions.

SMB Network Share visibility:

Yes, as in my post the SMB is visible and searchable outside of InDesign. Finder and Spotlight both return expected results.

Open dialogue - InDesign:

The SMB is visible in the open dialogue, however, cannot find anything.

Open dialogue - Photoshop:

The SMB is visible in the open dialogue and will return search items.

Impact on estate:

This is happening to all the MAC users.

I hope this helps.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Greg Horsburgh,

Thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry you're experiencing this issue. To help us narrow down the cause, could you please confirm your exact macOS version? Specifically, are you running the latest macOS Tahoe or the macOS 27 (Golden Gate) Beta? If you're using the macOS 27 beta, please note that it isn't yet fully supported with InDesign. You can refer to the system requirements here: https://adobe.ly/4humV4T.

If that's not the case, could you also confirm whether the SMB network share is visible outside of InDesign and whether it appears correctly in the File > Open and File > Place dialogs? We'd like to know if the issue is limited only to the Relink dialog. Additionally, in the Relink dialog, is the network mapping missing entirely, or is it visible but you're unable to locate or relink the file? It would also be helpful if you could test the same SMB share in another Adobe Creative Cloud application, such as Illustrator or Photoshop, to see if the behavior is consistent. Lastly, if possible, could you check whether a colleague using the same SMB share is able to relink files successfully, or if the issue is specific to your machine?

Looking forward to hearing back.

Abhishek

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