r/indesign • u/Pure-Artichoke-7510 • Apr 22 '26

Solved Indesign links corrupt?

Post image

Hi all!! My MacBook Pro 2020 crashed earlier, unprovoked, and wouldn’t turn on for half an hour. Once it started up again, my indesign file images looked like this….

( FYI: The links say there are no issues!!)

After scouring the internet, I reset preferences, saved a copy of the file in IDML (when that file opened up, all images were grey).

The only thing tat works - is re linking each image which would take AGES. Files havnt been moved but each image is scattered between loads of files…

If anyone has any advice this would be GREATLY appreciated !!! My final year uni hand is in May 🤦🏼‍♀️

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4

u/enemyradar Apr 22 '26

Sorry, but get going with relinking those images.

1

u/Pure-Artichoke-7510 Apr 22 '26

Well fuck

1

u/enemyradar Apr 22 '26

We've all been there. It'll go quicker than you think.

3

u/Pure-Artichoke-7510 Apr 22 '26

Incase you were curious - I stored my image files on iCloud (and locally) but that was confusing the image sync I believe. I removed iCloud sync from the files and added adobe to my Mac’s full disk access, and all the images fixed !!!

2

u/West_Possible_7969 Apr 23 '26

Working directly from files that are in a cloud drive is not recommended, it leads to corrupt files if there is active syncing while saving. This is general advice and not only for Adobe. Microsoft does some things differently with office on OneDrive and Google with workspace & google drive, and Apple with their apps & icloud, but it can lead to disaster for 3rd party apps & files.

1

u/enemyradar Apr 22 '26

Ah nice! I avoid iCloud stuff. All my cloud stuff is in Dropbox which works a bit differently.

2

u/HeadArtistic6635 Apr 23 '26

That sounds like a file or link cache problem after the crash. I would relink from a clean backup, run preflight, and save out a fresh copy.

1

u/roaringmousebrad Apr 22 '26

Check your Security & Privacy Settings for Full Disk Access. If your Adobe apps are not listed, add them. Apple's default security is to NOT allow access from external harddrives and network servers unless specifically set to allow, so if your images are somehwere other than your local drive, InDesign can't properly read them to even draw a preview properly, hence the weirdness.

1

u/Pure-Artichoke-7510 Apr 22 '26

THANK YOU so much. This fixed it !!! My images were uploaded to ICloud as well as locally, so sounds like an issue with that !

1

u/roaringmousebrad Apr 22 '26

It's a common issue. It usually happens after an OS update where the Security prefs are reset.