Reconnect PDFs is the tidiest way to fix a whole library of patterns at once. You’ll find it under More → Settings → PDF Files → Reconnect PDFs.
It was built for the moment that causes the most trouble — setting up a new device — where fixing patterns one at a time would be a long evening.
In the appOpen Reconnect PDFs
What you’ll see
The screen lists every pattern PDF this device can’t currently open, with the file name and the folder it was saved from. If everything opens fine, you’ll see Nothing to reconnect instead, which is a lovely thing to find.
The quickest fix: grant a folder
If all your patterns live under one folder, Yarn Squirrel spots that and offers Grant access to this folder, naming the folder it means. One tap, one pick, and they’re all reconnected.
A folder grant covers that folder and everything inside it, including subfolders and any files you add later. So if you keep adding patterns to the same place, you only ever do this once per device.
Nothing is copied or moved. You’re simply giving Yarn Squirrel permission to read what’s already there.
Picking files yourself
If your patterns are spread across several folders, use Find Files… and select them wherever they live. You can pick as many as you like at a time, and repeat for each location — each pass reconnects what it can and leaves the rest listed.
Yarn Squirrel will always tell you what it managed to reconnect, and how many of your picks didn’t match a pattern. Nothing is quietly ignored.
Two lists, two different situations
“PDFs not available here” — these have a saved location, so a folder grant or a bulk pick can match them. Most patterns end up here.
“PDFs with no saved location” — no file location was ever recorded for these, so there’s nothing for a folder or a file name to match against. Open each pattern and tap the part to point at its file. It’s more hands-on, but it’s also completely unambiguous.
Folders you’ve already granted
Once you’ve granted something, Reconnect PDFs shows you which folders are active. This matters for one confusing case: a file that sits inside a folder you’ve already granted but still won’t open. Granting it again won’t help, so Yarn Squirrel flags those files and asks you to point at them directly.
You may also see a note that some saved folder grants couldn’t be reopened this time. That usually means the folder has been moved or renamed since you granted it — granting it again at its new home sorts it out.
A note on renamed files
When you pick several files at once, they’re matched by file name. If you’ve renamed a PDF since importing it, reconnect that one from its own pattern page, where Yarn Squirrel knows exactly which pattern you mean.
Likewise, if two patterns are both waiting for a file with the same name, Yarn Squirrel leaves them for you to do individually rather than guessing and putting the wrong PDF on the wrong pattern.