Why am I getting a 'Missing Pictures' warning?
If you're receiving a warning advising of missing pictures, or pictures that you have added before now have a red exclamation mark in the middle of them, then this means that the editor is unable to locate the pictures.
The editor does not make a copy of your pictures but rather sources them from their original file path on your computer. Therefore if the editor cannot access that file path or the file path for your images has changed, then you will receive the missing pictures warning.
To avoid this happening in future, we would recommend saving all the photos you wish to use directly to the hard drive on your computer.
Another cause of this is if you have moved or renamed the pictures from the original location where you accessed them from - as they are no longer there, the file path that the editor has remembered is no longer valid.
To add your photos back into your project please follow the steps below:
1. Open the editor and select 'Open Existing Project'.
2. Double click on your project name to open it. If there are missing pictures, a window will pop-up saying "The following pictures are missing...". Click on the 'Find Pictures' button.
3.The editor will then bring up a list of missing pictures. Click on one of the pictures and click the 'Update' button. This will open a window to allow you to find the location on your computer where the image is now stored.
Once you've located the image file for the picture that you were intending to update, click on the file and click 'Select'.
You will be asked to confirm that you wish to update the picture.
4. After a moment, the editor should recognise if there are other 'missing' pictures located in the same folder as the image you just updated. It will ask you if you would like to update the other missing pictures as well. Click 'Yes' and every picture from that folder should now be updated. You will know if the file name has changed from red to black. If any of the file names are still in red, you will need to go through this process again.
5. Once all photos are updated, click 'Continue' to proceed to opening your project.
The editor does not make a copy of your pictures but rather sources them from their original file path on your computer. Therefore if the editor cannot access that file path or the file path for your images has changed, then you will receive the missing pictures warning.
Common causes of this are:
- if your photos are saved on USB or an external hard drive. As these are removable sources of media, they need to be plugged in or readable by your computer so that the editor can access the file path for these pictures.
- Mac Users - if you added photos to your project directly from the Photos App. When doing this, MacOS places the photos into a temporary folder on your hard drive. However this folder will be automatically deleted if you re-start your computer or after a given period of time. If you want to use photos from the Photos App, we strongly suggest exporting those files to a folder on your computer. See how to export photos here.
- OneDrive Users on Windows - if you have OneDrive active on your computer, by default it moves photos from specific folders on your hard drive into the cloud, meaning the albumworks editor can no longer access those photos from their original file path. You can tell if your files have been moved if they have a blue cloud next to them in File Explorer. To ensure your files are kept on your hard drive, go to your OneDrive settings. Go to the "Sync and backup" section. Under the "Files On-Demand" sub-section, click on the "Download all files" button.
To avoid this happening in future, we would recommend saving all the photos you wish to use directly to the hard drive on your computer.
Another cause of this is if you have moved or renamed the pictures from the original location where you accessed them from - as they are no longer there, the file path that the editor has remembered is no longer valid.
To add your photos back into your project please follow the steps below:
1. Open the editor and select 'Open Existing Project'.
2. Double click on your project name to open it. If there are missing pictures, a window will pop-up saying "The following pictures are missing...". Click on the 'Find Pictures' button.
3.The editor will then bring up a list of missing pictures. Click on one of the pictures and click the 'Update' button. This will open a window to allow you to find the location on your computer where the image is now stored.
Once you've located the image file for the picture that you were intending to update, click on the file and click 'Select'.
You will be asked to confirm that you wish to update the picture.
4. After a moment, the editor should recognise if there are other 'missing' pictures located in the same folder as the image you just updated. It will ask you if you would like to update the other missing pictures as well. Click 'Yes' and every picture from that folder should now be updated. You will know if the file name has changed from red to black. If any of the file names are still in red, you will need to go through this process again.
5. Once all photos are updated, click 'Continue' to proceed to opening your project.