How to get newly re-linked files to move to Audio Files folder?

[BLG]

I just opened an old-ish file and found many of the .wav files were missing. Luckily I found most of them in C:\Users\user name\Documents\Pro Tools\Project Cache\BI1xnEjQm5CQshG_KXx9nd\CumHnsk6j5CSHhu6AHCCY a#.ptproject\Audio Files. So I manually re-linked the files but they're not being copied to the session's Audio Files folder. I even tried a Save Copy In including Audio Files but the files still only exist in in that cached location.

Why is this? Is there a way to copy the files to the session's location when re-linking?

This is on a PC BTW.

[Eric Lambert]

In my experience, you can copy relevant files to the Audio Files folder within your session folder and ProTools will look there when you open the session and make the proper relinkings. That was on a Mac but I'd be surprised if it'd different on a PC.

[BScout]

There's a "copy and relink" option in the Workspace browser. After you've linked to your originals, go to the Workspace, highlight all the files, right-click and choose copy and relink.

(if some files are already in the right place, you can sort by the location and then only select the ones that need to be moved)

[Rich Breen]

Just a quick expansion on BScout's post: opt-o to open a session browser, expand the audio files folder, then click on the "Path" column to sort on path - from there it's easy to see audio files that are not in the session folder; select them, right-click to "move and relink", done.

[Eric Lambert]

Just be sure that those files are in fact getting copied to the session folder and not merely re-linked. I've been bitten too many times when reviving an old session from a backup only to find that the audio files for that session had originally been on another drive, a drive (and audio files) which was long gone.

In the past, we were accustomed to placing video files on external, non-session drives in order to streamline I/O and take some load off of the PT drive -- we now keep all video files in the session folder as well, again, for archival purposes, and because data throughput is no longer an issue with SSD drives. When restoring sessions, all the essentials come with it.