I need to set custom upload directory its vanished from backend where I original

Hi guys,

I built a site up on WordPress 3 (I think) a few years ago now, and at the time I set the uploads directory to be set to /wp-content/uploads/2015/ + whatevermonth it was uploaded in etc (wordpress automatically made the month part), I must have done this in the backend.

Now fast forward to the end of 2016 and I really need to update this uploads location to /wp-content/uploads/2017/

But going through the docs I find that the area where I set this custom uploads directory in the backend under settings>media I think has been removed as of wordpress 4.5 or a few below it.

I searched my wp-config.php and functions.php thinking I may have set it in there but I don’t see anything in there (so I must have just set it in the backend).

I read that I can now set a custom upload directory by adding this line to my wp-config.php
define(‘UPLOADS’, ‘mycustomdirectory’);

but as soon as I do this, all of my previous image links and previous file uploads there urls become broken.

Is there anyway I can change the default upload where it is currently uploading to (/wp-content/uploads/2015/) I now can’t find anywhere where this is now set in my site!)… and change that to just the default wordpress uploads directory/way up uploading or a new custom directory (2017), WHILE keeping my old existing image paths/links (as I have thousands of image across probably 100 pages?????

Without having to do a mass database SQL update for image urls etc.

Any help would be great