Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about ReplaceMagic — from first steps to advanced configuration. Can't find your answer? Contact our team.
ReplaceMagic is a Windows desktop application that bulk-repairs broken hyperlinks, OLE object links, VBA references, link sources, and embedded paths across large collections of Office documents, PDF files, text files, and Windows shortcuts — without opening a single document.
It is primarily used by IT teams and migration project leads after:
- Migrating documents to SharePoint Online or on-premises
- Renaming or replacing a file server
- Restructuring folder hierarchies
- Moving to new network storage or cloud platforms (Teams, OneDrive)
ReplaceMagic works by scanning your storage, finding every embedded link in every document, and then applying your search/replace rules in bulk — processing documents in parallel in memory without launching Word, Excel, or any other application.
Manual link repair requires opening every document individually, locating every broken link, and editing it by hand. At any scale beyond a handful of files this is impractical — a migration involving thousands of documents could mean weeks of manual work.
ReplaceMagic automates the entire process:
- No documents need to be opened — changes are applied directly to the file structure
- Processes all document areas at once — hyperlinks, OLE links, headers, footers, VBA, text, and more
- Handles any number of documents — scan and fix hundreds of thousands of files in a single run
- Preview mode — see exactly what would change before committing, with no risk
- Automatic backup — every modified document can be backed up before changes are saved
- Preserves metadata — original file dates, SharePoint author/editor data, and version history can all be preserved
- Scan — Point ReplaceMagic at a folder, network share, or SharePoint library. It crawls all documents and builds a list of every embedded link, showing which are valid and which are broken.
- Review — Inspect results in the grid, filter by document type or link status, and export to CSV or Excel for reporting.
- Configure replacements — Enter one or more search/replace string pairs (e.g. \\OldServer\Docs → \\NewServer\Docs). You can use wildcards or regular expressions and target specific document areas (hyperlinks only, text only, VBA only, etc.).
- Preview — Run in Preview mode: ReplaceMagic reports every change it would make but writes nothing to disk. Use this to validate before committing.
- Execute — Run the replacement. Documents are processed in parallel across CPU cores. Original files can be backed up automatically.
- Verify — Re-scan to confirm all links are now valid. Export a final report if needed.
For a detailed walkthrough see How to fix broken links and How to scan documents.
No. ReplaceMagic processes Office documents by reading and writing their underlying file formats directly — it does not launch Word, Excel, or any other Office application. This is what enables it to be fast and to process documents in parallel.
However, for certain legacy Office formats (pre-2007 binary formats such as .doc, .xls, .ppt) some features may require Office components to be available on the machine. Modern formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) are processed fully independently.
ReplaceMagic runs on Windows only. Any Windows version that supports .NET Framework 4.8 or later is compatible. It is not available for Mac or Linux.
See the full system requirements for hardware recommendations.
Yes. A free trial version is available for download with no registration required. The trial lets you test ReplaceMagic against your own documents so you can verify it works for your specific scenario before purchasing.
ReplaceMagic supports the following file types:
- Microsoft Word — .doc, .dot, .docx, .dotx, .docm, .dotm
- Microsoft Excel — .xls, .xlt, .xlw, .xla, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xltx, .xltm
- Microsoft PowerPoint — .ppt, .pps, .pot, .pptx, .pptm, .potx, .potm, .ppsx, .ppsm
- Microsoft Visio — .vdx, .vsdx, .vssx, .vstx (legacy .vsd/.vss/.vst can be auto-converted)
- Microsoft Project — .mpp, .mpt
- Microsoft OneNote — .one [BETA]
- Adobe PDF — .pdf
- Text files — .txt, .csv, .html and custom extensions
- Windows Shortcuts — .lnk
- SharePoint pages — Canvas pages and Wiki pages (.aspx, accessed via native SharePoint API)
Office versions supported: 2000–2016 fully; 2019 and Microsoft 365 tested and compatible for most features.
ReplaceMagic can find and replace content in the following document areas:
- Hyperlinks — web URLs and file path links
- OLE Object links — embedded objects referencing external files (e.g. a chart linked to an Excel workbook)
- Link Sources — Excel and Word external data source references
- VBA code — macro code containing file paths or server references
- Footnotes (Word)
- Comments
- Field Codes
- Connections (Excel external data connections)
- Power Queries and Pivot references (Excel)
- Headers and Footers
- Plain text body content
- SharePoint Canvas and Wiki page content
You can select exactly which areas to process per run — for example, update only hyperlinks while leaving text content untouched.
- Excel Link Sources: Maximum path length is 253 characters (old binary .xls format) or 2000 characters (modern .xlsx format). Replacements that would exceed these limits are skipped to prevent file corruption.
- PowerPoint external charts: Line breaks in replacement strings are automatically removed to prevent presentation corruption.
- File links longer than 235 characters: By default, file links are not updated if the resulting replacement string would exceed 235 characters (configurable).
- Legacy Visio formats (.vsd, .vss, .vst): These can be automatically converted to modern .vsdx, .vssx, .vstx formats before processing (configurable option).
- Large PDF files: Text fragment processing can time out on very large PDFs; timeout limits are configurable.
- Windows path length: Windows has a 260-character path limit by default; ReplaceMagic includes a workaround for documents with longer paths (configurable).
- Password-protected documents: Supported — passwords can be entered manually or imported in bulk from a file.
Yes. Outlook and email file support (.pst and .ost) is planned for a future version. If you have a specific format requirement not covered by current editions, contact us — custom development is available as a consulting engagement.
Yes. ReplaceMagic supports documents protected with both an open password and a modify password. Passwords can be:
- Entered manually in the Security configuration tab
- Imported in bulk from a text file in the format
OpenPassword|ModifyPassword— one pair per line. ReplaceMagic will try all imported passwords against each document.
Yes — ReplaceMagic has native integration with both SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online (Microsoft 365). It can:
- Scan document libraries, lists, Wiki pages, and Canvas pages directly via the SharePoint API
- Replace links in documents stored on SharePoint without downloading them to a local drive first
- Preserve the last modified date and modified by metadata after changes
- Manage document check-in and check-out automatically
- Force check-in of documents checked out by other users (configurable)
- Preserve content approval status and document versioning
See Fix broken links after SharePoint migration and SharePoint native support guide.
ReplaceMagic supports the following SharePoint authentication methods:
- SharePoint Online (Office 365) — standard username and password
- Windows Authentication — for SharePoint on-premises with Windows integrated auth
- Anonymous — for publicly accessible SharePoint sites
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) — using an application password created in your Microsoft account security settings
- App-Only Authentication — for automated/service account scenarios without user interaction
- Legacy Authentication Mode — for older on-premises SharePoint environments
- Log in to SharePoint/Microsoft 365 and go to your account settings → Security & Privacy.
- Navigate to Create and manage app passwords and create a new application password. Save it.
- In ReplaceMagic, use your normal username but enter the application password (not your regular password) as the credential.
- Select SharePoint Online (Office 365) as the connection type, or try the Multi-factor authentication (BETA) option.
- Close and restart ReplaceMagic after creating the app password for changes to take effect.
For the full guide see SharePoint MFA setup.
SharePoint Online (and sometimes on-premises) rate-limits API calls to protect platform stability. When too many requests are sent in a short time, SharePoint returns HTTP error 429 or 503. This is called throttling.
ReplaceMagic handles throttling automatically:
- Enable "Decrease workload during SharePoint Throttling" in Configuration → Configuration tab — ReplaceMagic will automatically reduce parallel processing when a 429/503 error is detected.
- Enable "Optimize workload every X documents" to gradually increase parallelism again once throttling subsides.
- The "SharePoint workload safety belt" option caps parallel processing at a maximum of 8 documents for any SharePoint target.
- As a starting point, set Parallel document processing to 3–5 for SharePoint targets and tune from there.
Yes. Tenant-to-tenant migrations (common after company acquisitions or mergers) change both URL paths and SharePoint internal item IDs. ReplaceMagic handles all link types:
- Absolute links — standard URL-based links are updated with the new tenant URL
- Relative links — path-relative references are updated based on your mapping rules
- ID-based links — SharePoint item ID links from the source tenant do not exist in the target tenant; ReplaceMagic converts them to absolute links (based on user provided search/replace combinations) so they remain functional
For complex tenant-to-tenant projects, our Replacements Preparation Package service can prepare all required search/replace string combinations on your behalf. See also Tenant-to-tenant migration guide.
- Special characters in filenames: Files whose names contain ~ # % & * { } \ : <> ? / + | " cannot have shared links or tokens retrieved due to SharePoint platform limitations.
- Metadata preservation: Keeping the original "Last modified" date and "Modified by" author requires Site Administrator rights on the SharePoint site.
- Backup: Document backup does not work in native SharePoint mode — version history (built into SharePoint) should be used as your backup mechanism instead.
- Max document ID: The default maximum SharePoint document ID value is 30,000,000 — this covers the vast majority of SharePoint environments.
- Query row limit: SharePoint limits list view queries to 5,000 items; ReplaceMagic uses 4,900 by default as a safe margin (configurable).
ReplaceMagic is the right tool whenever file paths or embedded links inside Office or PDF documents become incorrect at scale. Common scenarios include:
- Server migration or server renaming (old server name embedded in thousands of documents)
- Moving documents to SharePoint Online, Teams, or OneDrive
- SharePoint on-premises to online migration
- SharePoint tenant-to-tenant migration
- Folder hierarchy restructuring (e.g. inserting a new parent folder)
- Network infrastructure changes (e.g. changing UNC path conventions)
- Moving to a new NAS, SAN, or cloud file storage
- Company rebrand — updating addresses, URLs, or branding text in document headers and footers
- VBA macro code that contains hardcoded paths needing bulk update
- Pre-migration link audit — identify broken links before starting a migration
See the full usage scenarios page for more examples.
A server rename is the simplest ReplaceMagic scenario. Scan your document folders, then in Search & Replace enter:
- Search string: the old server name (e.g.
\\OldServer) - Replacement string: the new server name (e.g.
\\NewServer)
ReplaceMagic will update every hyperlink, OLE link, link source, header, footer, and text occurrence of the old server name across all documents in a single pass.
When documents are moved from a file server (e.g. \\FileServer\Company\Docs) to SharePoint Online (e.g. https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/Docs), all embedded links referencing the old path become broken.
ReplaceMagic handles this in two ways:
- Map SharePoint as a drive — map your SharePoint library as a Windows drive letter and scan it like a normal folder. Simple but slower for large libraries.
- Native SharePoint connection — connect ReplaceMagic directly to SharePoint via its API for faster processing with metadata preservation. See SharePoint native support guide.
Then set up your search/replace mappings: old file server path → new SharePoint URL. You can run multiple mapping pairs in one pass.
See Fix broken links after SharePoint migration for a full walkthrough.
Yes. ReplaceMagic can process headers and footers as a specific document area. This is commonly used when:
- A company moves office and the address in thousands of document footers needs updating
- A company rebrands and the old company name appears in headers
- A phone number, email address, or website URL in document headers needs changing
Configure the search string (e.g. old address), the replacement string (e.g. new address), select "Header/Footer" as the target area, and run. No documents need to be opened.
Yes — this is one of the most valuable pre-migration uses of ReplaceMagic. Run a scan of your current storage with link validation enabled. ReplaceMagic will flag every link in every document as valid or broken, giving you:
- A complete inventory of all documents and their embedded links
- A baseline broken-link count before you start moving anything
- An early warning of links that are already broken and will need repair regardless of the migration
- An exportable report (CSV/Excel) for stakeholder reporting
Recommended configuration:
- CPU: 64-bit quad-core processor or better
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 500 MB free for installation + additional space for logs and document backups
- Network: High-speed connection to the document storage being processed
Minimum configuration (expect slower performance):
- CPU: 64-bit dual-core 1.4 GHz
- RAM: 8 GB
RAM calculation: ReplaceMagic processes documents entirely in memory. As a rule of thumb: Parallel threads × Maximum document size (MB) × 10 = minimum RAM needed (MB). For example, 8 parallel threads with documents up to 100 MB each requires approximately 8 × 100 × 10 = 8 GB RAM.
ReplaceMagic is multi-threaded — more CPU cores means more documents processed in parallel and faster overall throughput. See full system requirements.
ReplaceMagic can handle very large document libraries. The recommended single-run batch size is up to 250,000 documents. Larger sets are possible depending on available RAM and hardware, but splitting into batches gives better control and recovery options.
For very large projects (millions of documents), you can run multiple licensed copies of ReplaceMagic on separate computers simultaneously, each processing a different folder or date range. Volume license packages are available for this purpose — see license packages.
Go to Configuration → Configuration tab → Parallel document processing. The default is 5 documents processed simultaneously.
Tuning guidance:
- For local or network drive targets: increase parallelism based on your CPU core count and available RAM
- For SharePoint Online targets: start with 3–5 and increase gradually; enable "Decrease workload during SharePoint Throttling" as a safety net
- Enable "Optimize workload every X documents" to let ReplaceMagic automatically find the best parallelism level for your hardware
- Enable "Re-read configuration after X documents" to allow live config changes during a long processing run without stopping
Yes. ReplaceMagic supports several search modes:
- Standard — exact string matching
- Match case — case-sensitive exact matching
- Whole word only — match the string only when surrounded by word boundaries
- Wildcards — use wildcard characters for flexible pattern matching
- Regular expressions — full regex pattern matching for complex transformations
You can also define multiple search/replace pairs per run — each pair can use a different mode. Pairs can be imported from a CSV or text file using a configurable separator (default: |).
Yes — with the right configuration:
- File system dates: Enable "Do not change document attributes" in Configuration → Processing tab. ReplaceMagic will preserve the original "Last accessed" and "Last modified" timestamps.
- SharePoint metadata: Enable "Keep Last modified date and Modified by values" in Configuration → SharePoint tab. This requires Site Administrator rights on the SharePoint site.
- SharePoint content approval: Enable "Keep content approval status" to preserve Approved/Rejected status after changes.
- SharePoint versioning: Enable "Keep published status" to maintain which version is visible to end users.
ReplaceMagic can store scan and replacement results in:
- CSV/Excel files — standard export, suitable for up to ~1 million rows; extended CSV export supports more than 1 million rows
- SQLite database — embedded database, no server needed, ideal for single-machine use
- MySQL — for team environments or very large datasets
- SQL Server — for enterprise environments
Database storage is especially useful for large migrations where result sets exceed CSV file limits, and for team environments where results need to be shared across multiple users.
ReplaceMagic comes in format-specific editions and bundle editions:
- ReplaceMagic.Ultimate — all editions bundled (best value)
- ReplaceMagic.Total — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Project, PDF, OneNote, Text
- ReplaceMagic.Office — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Project
- ReplaceMagic.PDF, .Word, .Excel, .PowerPoint, .Project, .Visio, .OneNote, .Text, .LNK
For current pricing see the store page. All licenses are perpetual (one-time purchase, not a subscription).
The license agreement is available here.
Yes. Volume packages are available with significant savings:
- 5-user license — 2× the single-license price
- 10-user license — 3× the single-license price
- 20-user license — 4× the single-license price
- Site license — 5× the single-license price — unlimited installations within one company (covers only the purchasing entity, not affiliated companies)
- Enterprise license — 8× the single-license price — unlimited installations across all entities in the same corporate group worldwide
During purchase, select the appropriate quantity. After payment, you are immediately entitled to install on the corresponding number of computers. See license packages.
Every ReplaceMagic license includes standard email support with a response time of 24 hours on working days.
For more intensive support needs:
- Premium Support ($200/hour) — includes phone and/or screen-sharing sessions with the ReplaceMagic team. See Premium Support.
- OnCall Duty — reserve the ReplaceMagic team for weekend or overnight migration windows. Pricing: $100/hour reservation fee + $100/hour when the team is actively engaged. Must be arranged in advance — contact us as early as possible.
Yes. Extended Maintenance covers ongoing updates and support beyond the standard maintenance period included with a license. See the Extended Maintenance page for details and pricing.
- Visit the Store page or click BUY NOW on any product page.
- You will be directed to our payment processor partner ShareIT where you enter your purchase details.
- After completing payment, you are redirected back to the ReplaceMagic site and will receive a ShareIT email with your license key — typically within a few minutes.
The entire process usually takes less than five minutes. For questions about the purchase process see Purchase Process.
The Replacements Preparation Package is a service where the ReplaceMagic team prepares all required search/replace string combinations on your behalf — saving you hours of preparation work on complex migrations.
Based on your scan exports and migration rules (source paths → target paths), we prepare combinations that handle:
- Absolute links
- Relative links
- SharePoint ID-based links (critical for tenant-to-tenant migrations)
Pricing by link volume:
- Up to 1,000,000 links — $4,000
- Up to 5,000,000 links — $8,000
- Up to 15,000,000 links — $12,000
- Up to 25,000,000 links — $16,000
- Over 25,000,000 links — contact us
Prerequisites: an active ReplaceMagic license, completed scan results, and documented migration rules shared upfront. Delivery time depends on data volume and capacity — early engagement is recommended.
Yes. Consulting services are available at $200/hour for assistance with:
- Migration planning and ReplaceMagic configuration
- Complex replacement scenario design
- ReplaceMagic training for your team
- Custom development for non-standard requirements
Consulting hours are valid for six months from the date of purchase. Onsite engagements incur additional travel expenses. Contact support@replacemagic.com before purchasing to discuss your requirements.
- Contact form: Contact Us
- Email: support@replacemagic.com
- Phone: +1 (302) 476 2350
- Help documentation: Online Help (F1)
- Blog: www.replacemagic.com/blog — release notes, how-tos, and migration guides
- Video tutorials: ReplaceMagic video guides
Standard email support response time is 24 hours on working days. For urgent support during migrations, see Premium Support.
The Additional Info tab shows all documents that could not be processed. Common reasons include:
- Document size exceeds limit: Increase the "Skip files bigger than X MBytes" limit in Configuration → Configuration tab.
- Processing timeout: Increase "Maximum document processing time" and "Wait time to close document processing" in Configuration.
- SharePoint throttling (HTTP 429 / 503): Click "Reprocess SharePoint files" in the Additional Info tab after reducing parallel processing. Enable "Decrease workload during SharePoint Throttling" to prevent future occurrences.
- Processing stopped manually: Documents not yet reached when processing was stopped. Resume by importing from Additional Info tab.
- Document corruption or access error: The document may be corrupt, locked by another user, or inaccessible. Check permissions and document integrity.
To reprocess skipped documents: click "Import Skipped Files" in the Additional Info tab to reload them into Scan Documents, adjust settings as needed, then re-run.
- Increase parallel processing: Raise the "Parallel document processing" value in Configuration → Configuration tab, in line with your available CPU cores and RAM.
- Enable "Optimize workload": ReplaceMagic will automatically find the optimal parallelism level for your hardware.
- Disable link validation during scan: Checking whether each link actually resolves (HTTP check + file existence check) adds significant time. Disable "Check if hyperlinks exist" and "Check if file links exist" if you only need to find and replace strings, not validate.
- Use "Ultra fast document scan": Skips content analysis (hyperlinks, OLE links) for a pure speed pass — useful when you only need a file inventory.
- Run on faster hardware: More CPU cores and more RAM directly translate to higher throughput.
- For SharePoint: Network latency to SharePoint dominates processing time. Reduce parallelism to avoid throttling; increasing it does not help if SharePoint is the bottleneck.
Go to Configuration → Logs tab and enable:
- "Create log file" — generates a log of all scan and replacement activity. Set a custom log folder path if needed.
- "SharePoint developer log info" — detailed SharePoint API activity (for SharePoint issues; enable only when asked by support).
- "SharePoint performance metrics" — breaks down SharePoint processing time per operation (download, metadata, upload, etc.) to identify bottlenecks.
- "Create dump file registry entries" — enables crash dump creation for analysis if ReplaceMagic crashes unexpectedly.
When contacting support about an issue, attach the log file — it significantly speeds up diagnosis.
- Authentication mode: Make sure the correct authentication type is selected (SharePoint Online, Windows Authentication, MFA, App-Only, Legacy). See authentication guide.
- MFA users: Use an application password, not your regular Microsoft 365 password. See MFA guide.
- Legacy Auth Mode: If your organisation has disabled legacy authentication protocols in Microsoft 365, try switching to App-Only Authentication instead. See App-Only Authentication guide.
- Permissions: Your account needs at least Contribute permissions on the SharePoint library. Metadata preservation requires Site Administrator rights.
- Firewall / proxy: Ensure outbound HTTPS traffic to SharePoint is not blocked. Configure proxy settings in Configuration → Processing tab if needed.
If the issue persists, enable SharePoint developer logging and send the log file to support@replacemagic.com.
Yes. Go to Configuration → Notifications tab and configure your SMTP or Microsoft Exchange (EWS) mail server settings:
- Mail server address and port (default SMTP: 25)
- Sender and receiver email addresses (receiver defaults to sender if left blank)
- Username and password (can be encrypted in the config file)
Use the "Send test mail" button to verify the configuration before starting a long processing run. This is especially useful for overnight or weekend migration jobs.
