Opening AEF made on PC into Mac

[LauraG311]

I made an after effects project for school at home on my PC and the classroom I'm in uses Macs. When I try to open my project, there's an error that says that my files are lost and when I asked my teacher, he just got frustrated and said I need to relink my files and walked off. Well as a beginner in AE, I have no idea what that means, and when I looked it up in other forums, I couldn't really find a solution. Can someone please help me out?

[Mylenium]

File --> Replace Footage. And please, by all means do read the help.

Mylenium

[LauraG311]

Funny enough, I knew this step, I just didn't know I had to collect my files on my PC and save them first. Thanks

[Dave_LaRonde · Accepted solution]

You need to bring EVERYTHING YOU USED in your AE comp with you:

• Go home
• Turn on your computer
• Open your AE project
• Highlight the comp
• Go File>(Maybe dependencies)>Collect Files
• Follow What AE says to do to collect files.
• Save the AE project file
• Save a copy of the AE project file.
• Navigate to the folder where EVERYTHING is collected for your AE project
• Insert a thumb drive
• Open the thumb drive
• Have a snack
• Drag the folder with everything in it into the thumb drive
• Yawn
• Go to sleep
• Next morning, make sure you have the thumb drive and get on the school bus
• Ride to school
• Go to your AE class
• Turn your machine on
• Take out your thumb drive
• Put it in the machine
• Open the thumb drive
• Find the folder with everything on it from the previous night
• Drag it onto the desktop
• Unplug the thumb drive
• Scratch your nose
• Open the folder you just put on the desktop
• Stop looking at the clock -- the bell hasn't rung yet
• Navigate to the AE project file
• Double-click on it

You should be good to go.  And if you can't understand THESE instructions, I can understand why your teacher got frustrated -- you're not paying attention in class!  Grow up!!

[LauraG311]

First I want to say thank you, because that was exactly the issue and now it's resolved, although I don't appreciate the sarcasm. My teacher never went over how to collect files or that it was even necessary to do after finishing up a project. And when I asked him for help, he didn't provide any real instructions other than saying that I need to re-link my files. I tried to ask him what he meant by that, but by then he had just walked away and told me to figure it out. It was the 2nd day in an Introductory course. I have very little experience with this program and I tried searching for an answer via google and these forums but no one had this specific issue (probably because it's an non-issue). So again, thank you for your comment, I now know that I have to collect my files and save them.