Abstract: Methods and systems for managing media in a media editing environment enable automatic updating and relinking to media files stored in user-designated directories. The methods include maintaining an index for the media files stored in the designated directories, the index having an entry for each media file, each entry including a unique identifier for the file, and pointers to a metadata file pertaining to the media file and to the media file itself. A media editing application uses the index to access the metadata files which provide information about the corresponding media files that is displayed in the editor user interface. The designated directories may be on storage devices local to the system hosting a media editing application, or on shared storage connected via a local area network, or on remote or cloud-hosted storage. The media editing application monitors the index and updates the user interface to reflect any changes.