(This article was first written as an update to my book: Final Cut Pro X – Making the Transition. However, this update was never published.)
[ Updated: July, 2014, with new features from the 10.1.2 FCP X update
Dec. 21, 2014, with the new Locate behavior. ]
One of the biggest frustrations with the initial version of Final Cut Pro was that if you lost the connection with your media, you were out of luck, as you couldn’t reconnect to it. Now, with the 10.0.3 update, you can. Here’s how.
Sigh… You open Final Cut Pro and, suddenly, you’re seeing red in the Event Browser.
Or, you open a project and red indicators glare at you from the Timeline.
These red indicators (which flag clips that are “off-line”) can be caused by:
With the exception of accidentally switching to Proxy files – which you can fix by going back to Preferences > Editing and changing the preference setting back to Original/Optimized media – the rest of these problems can be solved by relinking.
NOTE: The key rule for working with media in Final Cut Pro X is that once you import media, don’t move it or rename it. Let FCP X (or Event Manager X, which is a separate utility) do all your media management.
In the case of moving a folder, quit Final Cut, move the folder back into the Final Cut Events folder and restart FCP. Everything is all good again. The key is to quit FCP X before moving folders.
However, sometimes missing media is caused by renaming folders, turning off a hard disk, deleting the wrong data, or a host of other calamities. In which case, you need to reconnect the links in Final Cut to the correct media. Here’s how.
In either the Event Browser or the Timeline, select the clips that are off-line (red). Then, choose File > Reconnect Project Files. (If the off-line files are in the Event Browser, select the clips and choose File > Reconnect Event Files. This menu is context-sensitive.)
The Relink window appears with the missing clips listed at the top. If you want to reconnect ALL the selected clips, click the All radio button at the top. This is a good choice if you totally messed up reconnecting your clips and want to try again.This will relink both missing and online clips.
Most of the time, though, you’ll want to just click the Missing radio button to just reconnect the clips that are missing.
Unlike FCP 7, which has an automatic search built into the Reconnect dialog, with FCP X you need to find the clips manually. So, click the Locate All button.
Look in the lower third of this window; you may need to stretch it wider to see everything. FCP displays the path and file name of the missing file. This not only shows the file name, but the path of folders that held the clip. For me, looking at this path helps me find exactly the file I need a whole lot easier and faster. Remember, you need to match the missing file exactly, not just indicate the folder it is in.
When you find the missing file, click Choose.
When a missing file is relinked, it is displayed at the bottom of the Relink window. If other missing files are in the same folder, they will all be linked at the same time and displayed in the lower portion of this window.
Click the twirl-down arrow to the left of the number of files found to reveal all linked files.
If you mistakenly linked to the wrong file, select the incorrect file in this list and press Delete. The selected file(s) are disconnected and the unlinked clip goes back up to the top of this window so you can relink it to the correct file.
To minimize files becoming unlinked in the the future, I recommend you check Copy files into Final Cut Events folder. This is a good idea for all linked files. The only downside to copying files is that they take more storage space.
When you have found all missing files, click Relink Files and everything is “all well better” again.
SIDEBAR: POTENTIAL LINK ERROR
Sometimes if you are working with multiple versions of the same media, you may see this error message. It means that the clip you selected for relinking doesn’t match the source clip.
Click OK, and look for the original file. If, for some reason, it no longer exists, you will need to replace the missing clip in the Timeline with a new clip. FCP X won’t allow you to relink clips that don’t match.
UPDATE – July 19, 2014
The 10.1.2 update to Final Cut adds additional robustness to relinking. For example, if you store media in folders within folders, you can now relink media by selecting just the top folder. All missing media contained in folders within that top folder will be relinked, without needing to navigate to them individually.
NOTE: It is always a good idea not to change the file names of media once it has been imported into Final Cut. However, the new symlinks that FCP X uses can often relink media even though the file name has changed.
UPDATE – Dec. 21, 2014
I learned this tip last week from Michael Wood, when I was teaching a Final Cut Pro X class to his team. I don’t know when Apple added this feature to the software, but this is new behavior, at least to me.
As we’ve learned, nothing causes more frustration than the dreaded red Unlinked Media icon. To relink media, select the clips you want to relink in either the Browser or the Timeline and choose File > Relink Files.
This displays the relink dialog. Either select a specific clip to relink and click Locate Selected, or leave everything unselected and click Locate All.
Here’s the cool part. Normally, I never pay attention to the message at the bottom of the file picker screen because, in the past, it simply said the file was missing. Since I already knew that I ignored it.
However, here, it is saying that the file does not exist anywhere in the selected path: “/Volumes/OWC RAID (Fast)/Training Media/Jim Walker Underwater/” Hmm…
But! I know that that file is somewhere on that hard disk, so on the left in the Sidebar, I clicked the name of the hard disk and – poof! – FCP X found the file. I had moved it into a different folder on the same hard disk.
All I need to do is click Continue to relink to the file.
Here you can see the file was successfully relinked. Click the Relink Files button in the lower right corner of this dialog and you are done.
SUMMARY
Rather than require us to figure out where the file is, all we need to do now is select the drive or folder that probably contains the file and – if it is there – Final Cut will find it and allow us to link to it. (However, this technique won’t help at all if you’ve deleted the missing file because then it is actually missing.)
Very cool and MUCH faster than navigating to a file manually.
148 Responses to FCP X: Relinking Media [u]
← Older Comments Newer Comments →-
Flick Harrison says:
December 21, 2013 at 1:22 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
January 9, 2014 at 9:42 pm
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Harish says:
January 9, 2014 at 9:09 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
January 9, 2014 at 9:41 pm
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Harish says:
January 9, 2014 at 10:11 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
January 9, 2014 at 10:17 pm
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Harish says:
January 9, 2014 at 11:10 pm
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Wendy says:
February 4, 2014 at 2:01 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm
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Flick Harrison says:
February 4, 2014 at 10:56 pm
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Flick Harrison says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:38 pm
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Paul says:
March 9, 2014 at 4:52 am
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Larry Jordan says:
March 9, 2014 at 9:23 am
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SadMac says:
May 14, 2014 at 9:57 am
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Larry Jordan says:
May 14, 2014 at 11:12 am
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SadMac says:
May 14, 2014 at 3:52 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
May 14, 2014 at 4:15 pm
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JORGE BARREIRO says:
May 24, 2014 at 6:26 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
May 24, 2014 at 9:02 pm
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SadMac says:
June 25, 2014 at 4:38 pm
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LarryJ says:
June 26, 2014 at 2:16 pm
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Doug says:
June 26, 2014 at 2:09 pm
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LarryJ says:
June 26, 2014 at 2:12 pm
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Anthony says:
June 26, 2014 at 6:08 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
June 27, 2014 at 9:53 am
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Anna says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:57 pm
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SadMac says:
July 12, 2014 at 12:05 am
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Larry Jordan says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:42 am
← Older Comments Newer Comments →I’m having a problem with multicam clips too – I moved an assembly and a rough cut to another system, and when I opened up there, all the files were offline. I did all the relinking, but in the assembly, the multicam clips are still missing. In the rough cut they relinked fine.
The clips have no file names on them, and the window says “missing event” with the yellow triangle exclamation point.
In the assemble, I can’t right-click the multicam clip and open in angle editor – it just beeps at me. The option isn’t greyed out, but I get an error beep when I click it.
All the clips in the event bins look fine, including the multicam clips. From there, they open just fine in the angle editor.
Yeesh!
Flick:
Hmmm… time to call Apple.
Larry
Hi Larry,
I need a help from you regarding relinking files in fcpx.
We shot the video in RED and converted the files to mov 720p for editing purpose. Now i would like to relink these mov files to the raw RED files. How can this be done?
Harish:
Three questions:
1. Which version of FCP X are you using?
2. How did you create the ProRes files?
3. Does the timecode match between the RED and ProRes files?
Larry
Hi Larry,
Thanks for replying….
1. I am using FCP X 10.0.8
2. Using RedCineX Pro
3. Yes the timcode does match!
Harish:
OK, I haven’t done this personally, but select a group of clips in the Timeline and choose File > Relink Project Media.
In the dialog, select “All,” not “Missing.”
Navigate to where your RED footage is and relink the clip who’s name is displayed in the dialog. If all the file names match, except for the extensions, once you relink one clip, all the other selected clips will relink.
Do this until you relink all the media in your project.
Larry
Thanks a lot Larry.
I am having trouble relinking files because they weren’t in a folder. We are bringing photos in directly from iPhoto in the media area of FCP in the lower right hand side of the screen. This iPhoto library is on our external drive, and I have had to copy over it a couple of times to update it to be sure it has all of the necessary pictures in it. (long story…)
Anyway, many of the pictures are now showing the red box with “missing file.” I am unable to link as it doesn’t give the option to link back to iPhoto instead of items in a folder.
Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!!
Wendy:
This is a really great question – to which I don’t have an answer.
Time to call Apple – and let us know what you find out.
Larry
Crazy Mac navigation trick to help you relink those files. Tell me if this works.
Go to the finder – find your iPhoto Library.
Right-click -> “show package contents” (or if you have never set up right-click, which you should, use ctrl-click)
Navigate to the photo file you want to relink, under “masters.” Might need to use the search functions if you have lots of files.
Now go to FCPX. Select the file you want to relink in the event. Go to file menu – > relink event files
Select “missing files” and pick the picture you just found in the finder.
Then click “locate selected.” This will open a finder-like window where you are supposed to find the missing files.
Now drag that file you found earlier in the finder INTO THAT WINDOW. That’s right, drag the file from the finder into the file dialogue in FCPX.
It should show up as a highlighted / selected choice in your window. Now click “choose” and this should relink the file…
Hope this works.
(I’m not sure whether to hate linked external files more than duplicating everything into the Events folder, but I guess those are the only two choices… both have problems…)
Aha! As I was falling asleep I thought of an even easier way.
Open iPhoto. Find the photo you want to re-link.
Drag the photo FROM iPHOTO into the “locate selected” dialogue window. That should bring up the buried folder within the iphoto package, with your chosen photo highlighted.
Then relink to that.
Larry,
You mention that we have to manually relink and not to a folder but the exact file. I have over 1000 files in the timeline on a project. Do I really have to relink the media one at a time? Is there no quicker way to batch process, for instance, to tell FCPX that “all files from scene 9, they are in this folder” and it will do the rest. or is there third party help for this?
Paul:
This batch relinking is exactly what FCP X does. If it finds other unlinked files in the same folder, or related folders, it will relink them automatically.
larry
Hello, Mr. Jordan!
I’m a big fan of all your posts and videos, I’ve enjoyed them many years, and your voice is really great for my ears! : ))
So, thank you so much for your amazing stuff!
Now to the question..
I have a ton of recovered videos from uccidentaly formatted disk, but all of them has a different names now (not the same as clips used in the FCPX project). I need to relink them, and I’ve search any NLE or third party utilities for relinking media with different names, but it seems there is no way to do that, isn’t it?
I saw the app called reLink reTooled, but i don’t get yet can it relinked the files with entirely different names or not.
So, i think to try reconstruct the timeline by thumbnail pictures… but as we know when the project with offline media is loading FCPX changes the thumbnails to the red offline warnings, so… i can’t see thumbnails anymore : )) Is there any way to see timeline with thumbnails despite offline media?
Thanks for attention and sorry for my English
SadMac:
I’m sorry for the problems you are having. (And thanks, by the way, for the kind words!)
No, you can’t see thumbnails when media is off line.
However, you CAN relink media when the names have changed.
Select the clip, or clips, you want to relink and choose File > Relink (Event/Project) Media.
Navigate to the file on your hard disk that you want to relink the FCP clip to. If the names are different, FCP will compare the two clips to see if they match technically. If so, you can relink them.
Larry
Thank you, sir!
Indeed FCP able to relink clips with another filenames, but only if i select one clip, choose the relative file and relink, but unfortunately it doesn’t relink any clip at all if i select several clips at once and choose relative files.
So, i need to do it one by one : (
My luck that i have one exported movie so i can drop it on top of the timeline to see pictures and look at filenames of corresponding clips that are offline, so i can find that files in finder and rename them back. But i was hoping to batch relink : ) And other projects which hasn’t such luck as exported movies are useless in this case.
For curiosity:
Guys from reLink reTooled says i can do this:
1 – export XML from FCPX project
2 – load that XML to Xto7 utility
3 – export changed XML from Xto7 for FCP7
4 – load that changed XML to FCP7
5 – relink files in FCP7 project with reLink reTooled
6 – export new XML from FCP7
7 – load that XML to 7toX utility
8 – export changed XML from 7toX for FCPX
9 – load that changed XML to FCPX
and voila – they don’t fully guarantee that it will works for me : )
So, i have FCP7, but need to buy 3 utilities that i don’t want to use later))
That is the price for not having backups! : )
Thank you, Larry, anyway!
Wish all the best!
SadMac:
I’m sorry.
You are correct, batch relinking works, but ONLY when the file names have not changed. Otherwise, you need to relink one file at a time, because FCP X doesn’t know what other files to look for.
The Relink workflow makes sense to me – and if they think it can help, I see nothing wrong with how they want you to proceed. However, I haven’t used their software, so I don’t know how well it works.
Larry
Dear Larry,
I made a stupid mistake. I was editing an old video, I made months ago and I posted it to my website as a video clip. I was adding new footage and new soundtrack.
After I finished the editing, and as I was about to share it as a Master File, I decided to change the name of the Project Folder.
The result was that the “Base media”, the old footage pre edited, became like “Grayed out” or dark and when I play the final edited piece, the old “Base Media” appears as black and only the new additional footage plays, in perfect sequence with black in between.
I tried to relink but for some reason, the original “Base Media” disappeared from my HD’s (I have 4).
Playing around, I managed to drag the original “Base Media” from the Library and placed blow tha original one (which is identical in contents). The result is that the new copy plays correctly together with the new footage and sound, but if I delete the original “Base Media” the new additions go with it, disappear. This means the new additions are linked to the old piece. So It looks awkward that there’re two “Base Media”, identical, but one it has the links to the new additions and the second one, plays the events that are black in the original one. What’s your suggestion?
I can do pretty nice things with FCPX, but I’m a disaster with the filing. I’m sorry. Please help me!
Jorge:
I “think” you simply made the base media invisible. Select it and type “V” (without the quotes) and see if things get better.
If so, delete the new base media and you should be good. If not, send me a screen shot so I can take a look.
Larry
Hi, Mr.Jordan!
Could you suggest, please, can i reconnect not Offline, but Modified files?
My source files was modified by After Effects (with so called XMP – so bad, Adobe, so bad) and FCP X now loose connection to the media files.
I’ve tried to relink them, but with no luck.
Some users suggest to delete modified files from Transcoded Media – High Quality Media of this Event and FCPX reconstruct them again – but this helps with multicam or other way generated clips, but in my case i haven’t there that files.
Thank you so much for your attention!
Even if you couldn’t help in my case – anyway big thanks to you, because your courses are the best!
SadMac:
Because you are creating all new files in After Effects, you can’t relink.
But, you can import them, then replace the older version in the Timeline with the new version using a Replace edit.
Larry
FCP-X.1.1 will not allow me to share my project. there is a thin red line above the entire timeline. What’s the problem?
Doug:
The thin orange line at the top of the Timeline indicates that the project needs to render. Select Modify > Render all.
However, to export (share) a project, select the Project in the Browser, then choose File > Share > Master file. FCP will automatically render anything that is not already rendered.
Larry
Hey Larry, love your posts and your willingness to help!
Question: Just upgraded to Maverick OS and the latest Final Cut X. Suddenly I am having lots of failures exporting my Master file. I have disabled appnapp so that it doesn’t time out while rendering, but I am still getting failures. Any suggestions?
Anthony:
I’m getting a LOT of complaints on the latest version of FCP X (10.0.1) having problems with the latest version of OS X (10.9.3).
The BEST!!! thing you can do is contact Apple Support AND use the “Send Feedback to Apple” menu choice inside Final Cut Pro. The only way Apple will fix this is when editors start complaining directly to Apple.
Larry
Hi I have been trying to import a motion template from motion 5 into fcpx using the publish option. When I then go onto final cut pro the template is in the generator and you can see it however if you hover over it it comes up with missing file a no 2 triangle exclamation mark. i can’t relink files as it doesn’t find them so i don’t understand how or why it won’t import properly?
Any help would be appreciated thanks
hi, Anna. I’m not Larry, of course, but have a suggestion – probably, you need to update the FCPX or Motion, because i was at the same problem as you and just have to update Motion and its templates start working in FCPX. Though i can’t guarantee this would help in your case too.
Anna:
SadMac has a good suggestion. My suggestion is to be sure, when you are saving the Motion project, that you Collect all the media. This puts all the elements you need in the same location as the Motion project so that FCP X can find it.
Larry