FileDeck turns a pile of files into a document library your visitors can actually use — searchable, sortable, filterable, and access-controlled. The free version has no artificial limits; Pro adds what organisations need; the AI tier finds documents by meaning. Here’s the whole toolkit.
Free — no artificial limits
A complete library, in the free version.
The things other plugins push into paid tiers — layouts, folders, filters, a real block — are all here, for unlimited documents.
Three layouts
Table, grid or folder views — switch per library. Choose columns (title, type, size, date, categories and more), set sort order and pagination.
Instant search & filters
Results filter as you type across titles, categories and tags, with clickable category and tag filters — no page reloads.
Block, shortcode + Elementor
Drop the Document Library block on any page, use the [filedeck] shortcode, or the FileDeck Library Elementor widget. Scope a library to a category or tag anywhere.
Unlimited documents
No caps on documents, categories or tags. Ever.
Drag-and-drop bulk add
Select or upload many files at once from the Media Library — one document per file, titles from filenames.
⌘K quick search
A site-wide command palette jumps visitors straight to any document.
QR codes per document
Every document gets a QR code — print it on a poster or handout and it always resolves to the current file.
Download tracking
A per-document download counter, out of the box.
Force download or open in browser
Decide per document whether the button saves the file or displays it in a tab — instead of leaving it to each visitor’s browser.
Fast & accessible
No jQuery on the front end, keyboard-navigable tables with ARIA labelling, and it works with any theme.
Pro — for teams & organisations
Control, search and workflow for real libraries.
From $59/year, with renewals that never increase. Everything in Free, plus:
Search inside every document
Full-text search
Search the text inside PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and text files — extracted on your own server.
Scanned-PDF OCR (opt-in)
Send scanned pages with no text layer to the OCR service to make them searchable. It’s the only feature that sends file contents off your server, and only when you turn it on — files are processed and discarded.
Previews & zip
Extends the free PDF & image lightbox to Office, audio and video, and adds multi-select “download as one zip”.
Automatic PDF thumbnails
Grid and image views show a real first-page preview of each PDF, rendered on your own server.
File-type & folder icons
Download buttons show file-type icons for PDF, Word, Excel and more, and each category can display its own folder icons in the folder layout — from a built-in set, no uploads.
Custom fields & filtering
Custom fields
Add your own fields — department, policy number, publication date, owner — then show them as sortable columns. Optional per category, and importable from ACF.
Faceted filters
Let visitors narrow the library by any field, with live counts next to each value and min/max ranges for dates and numbers. Shareable via the URL, and fast on large libraries.
Access & protection
Access control
Password or role restriction per category, and per-document visibility — public, logged-in, or author only.
Client areas
Assign users to a category and it becomes their private client portal: a “my documents” page showing only their spaces, uploads into your moderation queue, and an email when you publish something new for them.
Protected files
Restricted files move to a deny-all vault and stream only after an access check, so the raw file URL never works. How protection works →
Signed expiring links
Share a protected file with someone who can’t log in via a link that works for 15 minutes, then expires.
Download quotas
Give each role — and logged-out visitors — daily download limits. Fair use for members’ areas, and an anti-scraping brake for public libraries.
Lead capture
Require a name and email before download; leads are stored in wp-admin with CSV export.
Webhooks & Zapier
Every captured lead is POSTed as JSON to your webhook — wire it to Zapier, a CRM, or your own endpoint.
Lifecycle & workflow
Version history
Replace a file and the old one is archived automatically — and restorable.
Supersede + evergreen links
Mark a document replaced by a newer one; a /d/{slug} link (and its QR code) always resolves to the current version.
Review cycles
Set a review date; documents due for review are flagged, with a reminder digest.
Approval gate
An optional “submit for review → approve & publish” workflow on the editor.
Front-end submission & editing
Let people contribute and fix documents without wp-admin: a submission form with moderation, a “my submissions” list, and an owner-only edit form — replacing a file keeps the old version.
Expiry & scheduling
Documents drop out of libraries after an expiry date, or publish on a schedule.
Change subscriptions
Visitors subscribe (double opt-in) to a category or the whole library and get an email digest of new & updated documents.
Insight, governance & migration
Activity log & audit trail
Views, searches, downloads and admin actions (publish, update, supersede, approve) — who, when, what — with CSV export.
Content-gap report
See what visitors searched for and didn’t find — the documents they wanted but you don’t have yet.
Analytics dashboard
Downloads, views and searches at a glance — a downloads-over-time chart, your most-downloaded documents and top searches, over 30 days to all time, with CSV export.
Google Analytics 4
Optionally send document downloads, searches and previews to your own GA4 as standard events (file_download, search, select_content) — off by default, and no data goes to FileDeck.
Library health monitor
A weekly scan for missing files, dead external links and never-downloaded orphans, with an email digest.
Download notifications
An email or JSON webhook the moment any document is downloaded — watch a sensitive file, or pipe events into Slack, Zapier or Make.
GDPR toolkit
Activity-log retention, optional IP anonymisation, and one-click export/erase through WordPress’ own privacy tools.
File integrity & SEO schema
A SHA-256 checksum per file (shown on the document page), and DigitalDocument structured data for search engines.
Import, export & migrate
Bring a library across by CSV — including another document-library plugin’s export format — and export yours back out any time.
Cloud storage
Browse and attach files from Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive, with a scheduled one-way pull that imports new files automatically.
AI tier — optional, opt-in
Find documents by meaning, and answer from your library.
From $119/year. Bring your own AI provider key — embeddings are stored in your own database, and AI is off until you turn it on.
Semantic search
Find documents by what they mean, not just the words they contain — “safeguarding” finds the child-protection policy.
Ask this library
A chat box where visitors ask a question and get a short answer grounded in your documents — message bubbles, example prompts, and links to the source documents. Built only from documents they’re allowed to see.
See what’s asked
An AI Questions view shows what visitors ask — and the questions your library couldn’t answer, each with one click to draft the missing document. Questions stay on your server, no IP, pruned after 90 days.
Acknowledgment tracking
Mark a policy “read & confirm” for chosen roles. Staff confirm with one click, a chase list shows who hasn’t, weekly reminders nudge them, and the evidence — including who read which version — exports to CSV for your auditor.
Dynamic PDF watermarking
Every served PDF is stamped with who downloaded it, from where, and when — singles, zips and view-only streams alike. A leaked copy names its recipient. Honest deterrence, not DRM.
View-only documents
Let people read a draft, tender or embargoed report in the browser while the download button, zips and the raw file URL are switched off. Pairs with watermarking so what’s on screen already carries their name.
Related documents
Every document page suggests its nearest neighbours automatically.
Duplicate catch
Near-identical uploads are flagged before they clutter the library.
Auto summary & tags
Suggested summaries and tags on the editor — you review and approve; nothing is applied automatically.
Your ordinary keyword search always stays 100% on your server. Semantic features send text to the provider you choose, under your own account and terms.
Simple plans, honest renewals.
Free
Everything a public document library needs. No limits, no nags.
- All three layouts
- Instant search & filters
- Block + shortcode
- Unlimited documents
- ⌘K quick-search + QR codes
Pro — $59/yr
What organizations need.
- Full-text search inside files
- Access control + signed URLs
- Review cycles & supersede
- Lead capture & activity audit trail
- Versions & expiry
- CSV import/export & OCR
AI — $119/yr
AI that understands your documents.
- Everything in Pro
- Ask this library (cited answers)
- Semantic search
- Related docs & duplicate catch
- AI summary & tag suggestions
- Bring your own key
Pro from $59/yr · AI from $119/yr · multi-site available. Renewals never increase.
See the whole toolkit on real documents.
Missing a feature? Tell us
FileDeck is built on what users actually need. If there’s a feature, integration, or customisation you’re missing, it goes straight onto the roadmap.
Inside the admin
You’re buying the workflow, not just the table.
FileDeck adds a familiar Documents section to WordPress. Here’s what managing a library actually looks like.
1. A dedicated Documents area
Every document is a normal WordPress entry with type, size and download count — managed from its own menu, not mixed in with your posts.
2. Set access on a whole category
Protect a category by password or role and every document inside it inherits the rule — no need to lock files down one by one.
3. Set the defaults once
Choose the default layout, columns, page length and accent colour site-wide — then override per library from the block or shortcode when you need to.
Install the free plugin and it’s your wp-admin in two minutes.