Unable to relink files in DaVinci Resolve 18.5? Try doing this.
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Unable to relink files in DaVinci Resolve 18.5? Try doing this.
DaVinci Resolve has two stages of file relinking, not one like in Premiere Pro.
I recently migrated my cloud storage provider from Dropbox to Box. I transferred all active projects and their cloud assets to Box during this process. When I reopened an existing DaVinci Resolve Studio project, none of the files were offline. Uh oh.
Clicking on the little angry red “Relink Files” chain icon brought nothing back. No files were relinked. Even if I selected an individual file and navigated to the new folder with that exact file, the Relink Files function would not be able to find the file. I googled around for an answer and couldn’t find one, so I decided to write up the answer here in case you, too, have this same frustration.
The answer is simple: change the source folder, then relink. DaVinci Resolve has two stages of file relinking. It has the file-level “Relink Files” function that we’re familiar with, but this appears to only work within the source folder. If the files are moved out of the source folder (and I don’t know how far out since Dropbox starts after C:\Users\Name\Dropbox), then Relink Files will not work.
Highlight all of your project files. Right-click and select “Change Source Folder.” In the dialogue, browse for the new source folder. Mine happened to be the same project folder but with a Box filepath, rather than a Dropbox filepath (those cloud storage names are so similar!). Accept the change.
Now click the “Relink Files” button again, pick the top-level project folder, and all files should sync back up without issue.
Do remember that if you are using a cloud provider and you haven’t marked the files for offline usage, your Davinci Resolve project will freeze until all files are downloaded.
Fingers crossed this works for you! It’s such a bummer not being able to resync files. This project I was working on has about a dozen episodes an hour or more in length. Not being able to resync that content would have been terrible.