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Paul_Miller
Inspiring
April 1, 2016
Answered

How to Remove Broken Links from InDesign's Links Panel

  • April 1, 2016
  • 13 replies
  • 40825 views

I'm reusing an InDesign (2015) document that had many images linked. Those images are gone forever, but the missing links are still in the Links panel. I just want to remove those linked images from the Links panel.

The images or the linked images do not exist in the document structure. There must be a way to remove these useless orphaned linked images from the Links panel.

Thanks!

Correct answer mamafour

My Links panel is empty:

 

 

Are you sure you deleted the correct Caches and Preference folders?:

 

macOS:

user ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Caches⁩ ▸ ⁨Adobe InDesign⁩ ▸ ⁨Version 18.0⁩

⁨user ▸ ⁨Preferences⁩ ▸ ⁨Adobe InDesign⁩ ▸ ⁨Version 18.0⁩

 

Windows

Users ▸ ⁨AppData⁩ ▸ Local ▸ ⁨Adobe ▸ InDesign⁩ ▸ ⁨Version 18.0⁩

Users ▸ ⁨ UserName ▸ ⁨ AppData ▸ ⁨ Roaming ▸ ⁨ Adobe ▸ ⁨ InDesign ▸ ⁨ Version 18

 

 

 


I had the exact same issue - it occurred when I deleted a page that still had objects on it. They hung around with no associated page and I could NOT get rid of the warning. But saving as an IDML file (just using file > save as, and not exporting), then re-opening and saving as usual reset the file perfectly.

13 replies

Show previous replies
F
Frans_van_der_Geest
Participating Frequently
April 4, 2016

‌Maybe present on a older unused Master Page somewhere? Or on the Pasteboard somewhere?

    A
    atjgraphics
    Participant
    April 2, 2016

    I think the best way is to actually delete those individual unlinked images in the Document itself and then automatically the missing links will get removed from your links panel.

    P
    Paul_MillerAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 4, 2016

    I deleted all the pages where these graphics once lived, so they are no longer in the document. All I can do is find and relink. Not sure why Adobe doesn't have some feature to just remove the link.

      L
      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 20, 2018

      Worthless to me, I delete all graphics, create new ones with different names and the links show up again. I never plan on using links again. I have no idea where the script is and how do I remove links that are linked. I do not want any of them.


      Hi Phil,

      what kind of graphics did you place?

      Perhaps InDesign pages?

      Rob posted the code for an AppleScript that can be executed with InDesign on Mac OS X only.

      My version of that code is in a different language, ExtendScript, that can be executed both with InDesign on Windows and Mac OS X.

      See my code in reply 10, also read my comments in the code. Also see my reply 23 to understand how to save and run my ExtendScript code.

      Regards,
      Uwe

      Steve Werner
      Community Expert
      Steve WernerCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 1, 2016

      Try saving the file as an IDML (File > Save As > InDesign CS4 or later). That generally gets rid of phantom links and fonts.

        P
        Paul_MillerAuthor
        Inspiring
        April 4, 2016

        Nope, that didn't work.

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