Offline media
Also known as: missing media, media offline
The state of a project whose clips cannot be found, usually because files were moved or a drive is not connected, shown as red frames.
Updated
What it means
A project file holds references rather than footage. Moving, renaming or disconnecting the source turns every clip into a pointer at nothing in particular. The timeline looks destroyed and is not.
The structure survives intact. Cuts, grades and titles are all still there, which is why the fix is Relinking media rather than rebuilding the sequence from the beginning. The work is not lost, only disconnected.
It is the most common way an edit appears to be lost without actually being lost. Nothing has been deleted, and the alarm is worse than the problem.
How it works in practice
Stable paths prevent it. Keeping footage where it was imported from, with the same folder names, is the single habit that avoids the whole category. Tidying a drive mid-project is what causes it.
Relinking one clip usually fixes all of them. Applications such as Premiere Pro search the chosen folder for the remaining files, so pointing at the right directory is normally the entire repair rather than the first step of one.
A consistent naming scheme makes that search reliable. Files renamed after import cannot be matched automatically, which turns a one-click fix into a manual hunt through folders.
What to watch out for
Rendering with media offline produces a damaged export rather than an error in some applications, and the gap is only noticed on review. Checking the timeline before a long render is quick.
Proxies complicate it. A project linked to proxies rather than originals can look complete and export at the wrong quality, which is a Proxy editing trap rather than a missing-media one.
Archives go offline by design. A session moved to a NAS and opened months later is offline until the drive is mounted, which is normal and still alarming every time.
How RawClip handles it
Nothing in the delivered result depends on a project file or on where the originals live, since the output is a finished video rather than a set of references. The source footage stays worth keeping, and the result plays whether or not any particular drive is connected to anything.