Relink Footage After Converting a Project: Paths Explained
You convert a project, open it, and the footage is offline. This is almost never a bug in the conversion: a project file stores where media was, not the media itself. This article explains what is stored, how Craft Converter can rewrite it, and how to fix whatever is still missing.
Why media goes offline
An .aep, .prproj or .ecproj does not contain your video, audio or stills. It contains a reference to each file: a path such as D:\Jobs\Show\(Footage)\intro.mov or /Volumes/Edit/Show/intro.mov. When the app opens the project it follows that path. If nothing is there, the item shows as missing, with a placeholder where the picture should be.
That happens whenever the path stops being true: you copied the project to another computer, the drive has another letter or another name, a colleague saved it on Windows and you are on a Mac, or you simply moved the folder. A conversion adds nothing new to this problem, but it makes it visible, because the converted project is usually opened on a different machine from the one that saved the original.
Craft Converter never receives your footage. Only the project file is uploaded, which is why the result cannot contain your media. What it can do is rewrite the stored paths so they point at the right place on your computer.
Absolute and relative paths
An absolute path starts at the root of a drive (C:\, /Users/..., a network share). It is exact, and breaks as soon as the drive layout changes. A relative path describes the file in relation to something else, typically the project folder. It survives moving the whole folder, as long as the internal layout stays the same.
Adobe projects mostly store absolute paths. Premiere Pro projects can also keep a relative path for each media file, and the converter uses it when it exists. After Effects projects give the converter only the absolute path, so it has to work from that.
The folder option, and what it does with your paths
Above the converter there is a field for the folder that holds your project and its footage, on your computer. On a Mac, hold Option, right-click the folder and choose Copy as Pathname; on Windows, Shift + right-click and Copy as path. Only the path text is sent, never the files, and the converter does not check that the folder exists, because it has no access to your disk.
After Effects to EffectCraft
The converter looks at the last folder name in the path you gave. Suppose you give /Users/me/Show and the .aep stored D:\Work\Show\(Footage)\a.png. It finds the folder named Show in the stored path and keeps everything below it, so the file becomes /Users/me/Show/(Footage)/a.png. Subfolders are preserved.
If the stored path does not pass through a folder with that name, the converter cannot know where the file sat, so it keeps only the file name and places it directly under your folder. This is the case to watch for: footage that lived on another drive, outside the project folder, ends up expected at the top level of the folder you gave. Either gather those files there, or relink that item afterwards. If the name occurs more than once in the stored path, the deepest match is used.
If you give no folder, the stored path is kept as it was.
Premiere Pro to FilmCraft
The rule is similar but not identical. With a folder given, each file is expected at your folder plus the relative path Premiere stored for it. When the project has no relative path for a file, only the file name is used, directly under your folder. So a project whose media sits in subfolders converts reliably only if Premiere stored relative paths; otherwise, putting every file flat in the folder is the safe option.
EffectCraft to After Effects
This direction produces a script, and the script looks for each file in three places in turn: the path stored in the project, then next to the script file, then the folder you gave. A file that is found nowhere becomes a placeholder, and the message at the end of the run names it.
Mac and Windows paths
Windows uses drive letters and backslashes, macOS uses a single tree with forward slashes and volumes under /Volumes. A path from one never resolves on the other, so a project that crossed systems without the folder option will always arrive offline. The converter treats backslashes and forward slashes alike when reading stored paths, which is how a Windows path can be mapped onto a Mac folder. If the folder you paste is itself a Windows path, the rebuilt paths use backslashes.
Two practical points. File names are case-sensitive on some systems and not on others, so Intro.MOV and intro.mov are worth matching exactly. And network volumes mounted under a different name on your machine count as a different path.
Image sequences
A sequence is hundreds of numbered files that the app plays as one clip. Its project entry points at the first file, and the app infers the rest. That makes it fragile in two ways: relinking to a single frame can quietly turn it into a still, and one missing number leaves a gap.
The converter's own notes are explicit about this. In a Premiere project, a numbered-stills clip is detected and named in the report with its frame count. The advice is to give the media folder before converting so FilmCraft opens it as a sequence, because Link Media in FilmCraft 0.8 turns a sequence into a single still. For After Effects, a moving item with an image extension is treated as a sequence. In every case keep the numbered files together in one folder, with the same naming pattern and no renamed frames.
Audio
Audio files relink by name like everything else, but EffectCraft's Relink Missing Footage accepts a candidate only when kind, size, frame rate and length all match what the project recorded. Different decoders measure the length of some compressed audio slightly differently, so a few audio files may be refused. The guide suggests using Replace Footage for those, or converting again with the folder filled in.
Linking inside the apps
- EffectCraft: open the .ecproj with File ▸ Open Project, then File ▸ Dependencies ▸ Relink Missing Footage… and choose the folder. Each file is searched by name.
- FilmCraft: open the .fcproj from inside the app (File ▸ Open Project); in FilmCraft 0.8 double-clicking it in Finder does not open it. Right-click offline media in the Project panel and choose Link Media, then pick the folder.
- After Effects (after running the script): File ▸ Dependencies ▸ Find Missing Footage, or right-click a placeholder and use Replace Footage ▸ File….
Troubleshooting list
- Everything is offline: you probably gave no folder, or the path you gave is not the one your files are under. Convert again with the right one.
- Only some items are offline: they were probably outside the project folder. Compare the report's footage names with what is in your folder.
- Names match but nothing links: check extensions and case, and that the file is not an alias or a cloud-only placeholder that has not downloaded.
- A sequence became one frame: relink the first frame in the Interpret Footage or Replace Footage flow for that app, or reconvert with the folder given.
- Audio refuses to relink: use Replace Footage for that file.
- Placeholders after running the script: the message at the end lists them; put the files next to the .jsx and run it again, or replace them by hand.
Where to go next
The guide has the full opening steps for each app. To convert, use After Effects to EffectCraft or Premiere Pro to FilmCraft, and fill in the folder field first; it saves most relinking work.