Thousands of mp4 files renamed midway through project. How to help Premiere locate the files?

[aaddiiooss]

I'm working on a project where approximately 4000 very short mp4 files were imported.

Midway through the project, we had to rename the mp4 files, so obviously, when I open the project, Premiere Pro is not finding the files, because it's looking for the old file names.

Is there some way I can quickly help Premiere Pro recognize the files and continue editing from where I left off before the file name change, rather than search for each file one by one? Given, I'm working with thousands of files, this would take a really long time to do manually.

I have a Google sheet with all the old file names in one column and all the new file names in another column, so I have a reference of the old name vs new name for each file, in case that could be useful. I also have the files with their old file names backed up in case I need to go back to them in order to solve this. However, ultimately, I'll need the file names to use the new file names.

Would very much appreciate help with this.

Thanks!

[MyerPj]

You can use the standard locate media screen that comes up when you start pp. There is a match name option, uncheck that, and then select a file with the new new name, in the same folder, PP will be able to match the files. 

Make a copy of your project and do some testing with it.

[Averdahl]

You can use the standard locate media screen that comes up when you start pp. There is a match name option, uncheck that, and then select a file with the new new name, in the same folder, PP will be able to match the files. 

Make a copy of your project and do some testing with it.

By @MyerPj

I tried that and it did not work here. If i for example import files named A001.mxf, A002.mxf, A003.mxf, etc, etc and save/close the project and then rename A001.mxf to Landscape.mxf, A002.mxf to Grass.mxf, A003.mxf to Seawaves.mxf the first file Premiere Pro wants me to find is A001.mxf. If i now have no clue of what i renamed A001.mxf to i am lost.

And even if i did remember, it will only link up the renamed file Landscape.mxf. Then it stops and ask me to locate A002.mxf. As it seems Premiere Pro has no idea how i renamed the files, their file size, date created etc so it can´t automagically link up files that has been renamed from X to Y.

Or did i miss a checkbox in the Link Media dialog? 🙂

[MyerPj]

It looks like I may have outfoxed myself. I had copied the files to a 'copy' folder under the folder where I renamed the files. I just went to check that project, (I had moved the files with original name back to where they belong and had deleted the renamed ones) When I opened the project, it says can not find files, and it refereneced the 'copy' folder. The original relinking, I just selected a file in the renamed one, that was correct to the original files (if you forgot the old name...??),  and then it linked. I thought they found the new files by hash, or file id, but it may have just found those same named files in the 'copy' folder. I'll test it when I'm back in the office.

[aaddiiooss]

I also just tried as well. I unchecked the "Match name" option and did a search in the folder where the file exists, but Premiere wasn't able to correctly locate it.

The only property I can think of in the files that remained the same would the be 'Date Modified', but Premiere doesn't seem to have a way of searching for files based on that.

[aaddiiooss]

EDIT: The only UNIQUE property, I can think of in the files that remained the same and with which the files can be identified, would be 'Date Modified'...

[Mathias Moehl]

My (paid) extension Automation Blocks can read spreadsheets and change attributes like the media path of project items. Hence, you should be able to create a custom automation to relink your files. You can also hire an expert to create such an automation for you.

The script should probably do the following

for each project item:

     if project item is offline:

          read the media file path and extract the filename from it
           search through all rows of the spreadsheet and see if you find the filename
           if filename was found, update the media path to contain the new name.

[aaddiiooss]

Hi Mathias, 

This looks interesting!

I see there's a "Try" option. Is it possible to test it out and see if this will work for me, and if I can get a handle on it myself?

Also, I see your demo videos are all on Mac. Just wanted to check if this extension will work on Windows 11.

Thanks!

[Mathias Moehl]

Yes it is compatible with Windows and the trial version is fully functional for 10 days.

[aaddiiooss]

Hi Mathias, I've been checking out Automation Blocks and it's really cool! 

I think I'm starting to get a handle on how to use it. Looking at your suggested block structure:

The script should probably do the following

for each project item:

     if project item is offline:

          read the media file path and extract the filename from it
           search through all rows of the spreadsheet and see if you find the filename
           if filename was found, update the media path to contain the new name.

The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is the last block for how to update the media path to contain the new name.

[Mathias Moehl]

Great to hear that you made some progress 🙂

You can get and set the media path using Set Attribute of Project Item. 

[Mathias Moehl]

Oh, I just noticed the challenge that the media path contains the full file path including folder information like

C:\path\to\myFile.mp4

whereas your spreadsheet probably only contains myFile.mp4.

So to calculate the new media path you can use the Replace in Filepath block.