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My Movie Maker project says media is missing

Movie Maker 2012 never kept copies of your photos, videos or music. The .wlmp project only remembers the full path of each one, and when a file is no longer at that exact path, Movie Maker flags the item as missing and has nothing to show for it.

The files are usually still around somewhere. Here is why the link breaks, how to mend it so Movie Maker opens the project again, and how to rebuild the movie without Movie Maker at all.

Why it happens

Each item in the project points at a path like C:\Users\Ana\Pictures\Trip\IMG_0412.JPG. Anything that changes one part of that path breaks it: a new computer or a fresh copy of Windows with a different user name, photos moved into OneDrive or another folder, a renamed folder, an external drive or USB stick that Windows now gives a different letter, or a project copied to another PC without its media. Videos are often converted or re-exported too, and a file called beach.mp4 is not the beach.MOV the project asked for.

Fix it in Movie Maker

As far as I know Movie Maker 2012 has no way to point a whole project at a new folder, so the fix is to put the files back where it expects them.

  • Find out what it expects. Open the .wlmp in Notepad and each MediaItem line has a filePath, or drop the project on the free check, which lists every file it uses with its old path.
  • Same drive, different folder: create the folders the path names and copy the files into them.
  • The drive letter changed: if the files are on an external drive that used to be E:, give it that letter back in Disk Management (right-click Start, Disk Management, right-click the drive, Change Drive Letter and Paths). If the files now sit in an ordinary folder, the subst command makes that folder appear as the old drive until the next restart: subst E: "C:\Users\Ana\Old drive".
  • The user name changed: the paths start with C:\Users\ and the old name. A folder junction from a Command Prompt opened as administrator makes the old name lead to the new one, for example mklink /J "C:\Users\Ana" "C:\Users\ana.smith".

Then open the project again. Every item whose file is back at its path shows its picture once more.

Fix it without Movie Maker

Slideback reads the .wlmp in your browser and does the matching for you. Drop the project on the converter, choose the folder that holds your files now (a parent folder is fine), and it finds each one by name, whatever the drive letter, user name or folder layout. A file with the same name and a different extension is matched as well, so a video you converted from .MOV to .mp4 still counts. Anything it cannot find you can choose by hand, and whatever is still missing is listed before you export.

Then it rebuilds the movie with the trims, transitions, pan and zoom, titles, captions and music, and plays it in the page. The check and the preview are free; saving the MP4 is a one-time US$19. Nothing is uploaded.

If the files are really gone

A .wlmp has no copies of anything inside it, so a file that no longer exists anywhere cannot be put back from the project. Before giving up, search every drive in File Explorer for one of the file names the check lists, and look in the old computer's Pictures, Videos and Music folders, OneDrive and its recycle bin, the phone or the photo service the pictures came from, external drives and USB sticks, and old emails.

Look for the finished movie too. If anyone ever chose Save movie, Movie Maker wrote an .mp4 or .wmv file, usually in the Videos folder, and that file already has everything in it.

Common questions

Does a .wlmp file contain my photos and videos?

No. It is a small text file listing where each photo, video and song was, how long each one shows, where clips are trimmed, and the transitions, effects, titles and music. The media always stayed in its own files.

Can I open a .wlmp file without Movie Maker?

Yes. Slideback reads it in any current browser, on Windows, a Mac or a Chromebook, lists what it needs, and turns it into an MP4 once the files are found.

Some of my clips are WMV. Will they work?

Browsers cannot read WMV or AVI video, so Slideback lists those clips as unreadable. Convert them to MP4 with any free converter, keep the same file name, and choose the folder again: the converted file is matched by name.