How to Reconnect Motion Templates to a New Hard Drive Location -

When you move your Motion Templates folder to a different external hard drive or change your hard drive’s name/location, Final Cut Pro and Apple Motion may lose track of the templates you’ve created or downloaded. Here’s how to reconnect them:

Step 1: Locate Your Motion Templates Folder

Your Motion Templates are typically stored in:

/Users/[YourName]/Movies/Motion Templates. localized

Or, if you use an external drive, it might be:

/Volumes/[Old Drive Name]/Motion Templates.localized

Step 2: Move the Folder to Your New Drive

Make sure your new external drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS for compatibility.

Then, move the entire Motion Templates localized folder to your new drive. Place it at the root level of the drive, not inside any folders.

Example path:

/Volumes/[New Drive Name]/Motion Templates.localized

Step 3: Re-link in Final Cut Pro (if needed)

FCP should automatically detect templates on mounted drives with the correct folder structure. If not:

Quit Final Cut Pro.
Reopen it with the drive connected.
Go to the Titles, Effects, or Transitions Browser.
If they still don’t show, try restarting your Mac to force FCP to refresh its media paths.

Step 4: Re-link in Apple Motion

When opening a Motion template that references media files, you may be prompted to locate missing files.

Use the File > Relink Files… option if prompted.
Or manually relink through the Media Inspector by selecting a missing asset and choosing “Relink.”

Bonus: Use Aliases (Optional)

If you want to avoid issues when switching between drives:

Keep Motion Templates on a single, consistent drive.
Create an alias of Motion Templates, localized on your internal drive, that points to the new location.
- Right-click the folder > Make Alias, then place it back in the /Movies/ folder.

Troubleshooting:

Make sure .localized is preserved — don’t rename or reformat the folder.
Avoid having two folders named “Motion Templates” on multiple drives to prevent FCP confusion.
Make sure your user account has read/write permissions on the new drive.

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