How to Remove Broken Links from InDesign's Links Panel

The indd -> idml -> indd procedure took care of our problem. Thank you!

I was having this problem. The missing PDF's were on a serperate layer, locked and hidden.

Thank you so much for that tip. Never crossed my mind about the IDML.  See, 6 years later you are still helping. Again, A HUGE THANK YOU!!!

Hi Raphnorac,

to analyze the cause of this issue I must be able to look into your document.

I can speculate on and on, but this will not bring us to a solution.

Best,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi Raphnorac,

right; that's not for everyone with the issue.

Your suggestion with the Structure window can only work with documents from an XML workflow.

Or with documents resulting from a data merge action where all data field placeholders were positioned on master pages.

( Because this special workflow will add a tagged XML structure to a result document. )

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

I found a way to remove these images. Easier and better than script code. But I think that this action only works if you are working on a printed document. Click on Ctrl + Alt + 1 (command + option + 1) to open a Structure panel on the left side. Click "root" and then click to remove it. That's it.

Probably it won't work for everyone, but in my case it worked just fine.

I created a video with 5 different methods for fixing broken links. I actually found 3+ methods that actually work when the original document isn't available. The other 2 methods may work if you have the Windows version of Indesign:

https://youtu.be/P8wPLywjXmo

Hello--jumping in here because I've got the same issue.

to complicate matters, when I go to the page where the missing links supposedly are, and I remove the photos I've used for this document, there's nothing but extra photo frames.

this may be because the library I'm using has photos in the various elements.

There aren't any lock symbols on the links, and I am working in Windows, not Mac, so an Apple script won't work. I'm working in CS5.5.

Besides fixing my document, can I fix my library somehow?

Can anyone help? Thank you.

I know I'm a little late but I ran into the same issue as described above with editing an older document and found a solution to delete those links without using a script or saving the file as a different name. If you click on the Window tab located at the top of the screen and click on "Layers" (F7 is the hot key) you will notice all of the layers currently used in the document.  Next look to the left of the desired link that you want to delete and make sure it doesn't have a lock symbol associated with it. If it does, this is why you can't delete that particular link from your file.  Once you unlock that link, you should be able to select it and delete it from your project while still inside of the layers tab.  I hope this helps others in the future.

Don't forget to check (or delete) Master pages. Sometimes, these links exist because of some content on the Master pages that you won't see on pages if the Master's aren't applied somewhere within the document. When you delete unused Master Pages that contain these "linked" graphics, the unwanted link list will update also.

Ask me how I know this...

It's easy to forget.