Relinking the same media every time?

Report · Dec 13, 2021

Hi folks,

I recently had to move some media for an ongoing project to a different location. I know it's not optimal to move things mid-project but my client requested it because they manage the media drives. I made sure I had the exact new path and was able to relink it easily the next time I opened the project.

Problem is, now every time I reopen the project, it shows as missing media and makes me relink it again. I've relinked media many times on other projects, and usually once I've relinked it, it stays relinked and the project finds the media. For some reason, this project is requiring me to relink every single time I open it.
Since I know the path it's more of an annoyance than anything else, but I'd prefer it didn't happen.
Am I missing something obvious?

Report · Oct 26, 2023

I am working on a feature documentary and PP is very regularily "losing" where source or proxy files are for random folders. I'll offline, then relink them, and it'll fix it, only for it to crop back up again for a different set of folders.

Report · Nov 06, 2023

The suggestion to just hit cancel also actually worked for me, the media was actually linked every time and eventually after a few times hitting cancel it seems to have found the correct path file and no longer asks me

Report · Apr 23, 2024

Having this issue as well. 20 days of footage for a reality show and the server drives had to be relocated to a NAS. Now all of our editors on the Production file have to manually relink their episodes and it's DAYS of footage... The folder structure was maintained but the root of the NAS is named differently but when it's all relinked and the editors close out and re open premiere they are stuck relinking their full 44min episodes all over again, wasting massive amounts of time... it's a nightmare.. Is there a way to solve this yet?

Report · Aug 30, 2023

For anyone having this problem in 2023: after I relinked, saved, closed, reopened, and got asked to relink again...I just clicked "Cancel" on the Link Media popup. All those files it listed as unlinked were actually linked fine in the timeline. Probably won't work for everyone but worth a try.

Report · Sep 27, 2023

Thanks for this! It works for me 🙂

Report · Nov 03, 2023

YOU BEAUTY!!!!! This is the only thing that worked for me. I clicked cancel, all the footage is linked in my timeline. I'm working on a feature length doco and it was driving me BONKERS.

Do this, let me know if it works for you too (Nov 2023)

Report · Nov 25, 2023

I'm sorry to say it isn't working for me, and It's a really big problem with my 16 part series. I have moved all the orignal paths and now nothing links although I relinked everthing once, it can't find the new path. Have tried the "cancel" trick and it's not working. Would love some help.

Report · Dec 02, 2023

Bumping this up. I have the same problem. Have tried all of the tricks listed below (except copy the project - it's massive and I just get the spinning beach ball if I try to copy and paste). Has anybody figured out how to fix this?

Report · Dec 02, 2023

So by creating a new project and copying and pasting the contents in it fixed it. It just took about 20 minutes of time staring at a spinning beach ball.

Report · Jan 22, 2024

Hit Cancel!! That is the solution. Do Not Hit Locate!

It works. I swear to god. After a lot of trying, it's that simple.

Just hit Cancel when you are asked to relocate.

So fracking weird!

kirstyc1092575 provided the answer, but it's burried down there and i want to make sure Kirsty's answer is seen

Report · Jan 22, 2024

Sorry dude, that was the first thing I did. I tried everything. Cancel doesn't work. Infinite loop.

Report · Jan 23, 2024

Awwww Maaaan. That sucks. I will edit my comment. Best of luck.

wait- What about just selecting everything, creating a new session, and pasting the whole thing in? That worked with me for another bug. And there is always the goto solution of completely reinstalling premiere lol.

Last guess. Render all of of the files as new ones, like in adobe media encoder, and locate those files. I'm sorry if you tried any of these and they didn't work. For me, it's the first time I have used GoPro footage, so i wonder if there is something up with GoPro that I need to know, like "Always convert GoPro files to ____ before using".?

Best of luck!

BTW - I am by no means an expert. Just grabbing at straws here. I feel bad for your situation

Report · Jan 23, 2024

This doesn't work for everyone, but this worked for me ↓

Good luck everyone!

I feel for you all as I was just about crying over this yesterday

Report · May 30, 2024

Same issue.

I did "cancel" then located the "missing" items in Project panel... where they were sitll linked! OFFLINED items then relink. Save. Close. Reopen. No errors... go figure.

(a community newbie, but editing for decades.)

Report · Oct 15, 2024

ok, I have the same problem, cant fix this, any updates? please help

Report · Feb 02, 2025

Similar issue here: I dont have to relink manually after relocating my source footage, but every time I open premiere, its busy "relinking files" in the background. Why? I tried 25.1. stable realease and 25.2. beate, its the same.

Report · Apr 14, 2025

I've been dealing with this intermittently for a while now as well (only on certain projects). I discovered that hitting "cancel" did work for me, but it still drove me nuts so I wanted to try something else. It fixed the problem completely.

1. I opened the project using "The Unarchiver" app (Right-click the project and chose "Open with...")

2. I opened the resulting file in TextEdit (Again, right click and choose "Open With". I'm on a Mac, but any text edit app should do)

3. I did a basic find/replace to find the old hard drive/directory lines Premiere is *trying* to link to, and changed those to the name of the drive the files now reside on (luckily I had used the exact same folder structure when I transferred my media onto a new SSD drive, so it was simple to just replace the root drive name rather than the entire file path)

4. Saved and close the text file.

5. Added ".prproj" as the extension.

6. Opened it up and everything was linked.

I hope this helps someone!

Report · Aug 19, 2025

Hi there,

I had the same issue with a project folder I copied to a hard drive, I had to relink the same media every time I open the project file. I was going insane, tried a bunch of things and what worked is:

- I relinked everything one more time (I had to relink every file individually..)

- "save as" the project in the same location, different name

- and what made the biggest difference: I deleted the other project versions. Before doing that I kept having the same relink issue!

Hope that helps