Changelog

The third one-click importer lands. Alongside Download Monitor and WordPress Download Manager, FileDeck Pro now brings a Document Library Lite or Pro library across in one click — documents, categories, tags and files included.

Import your Document Library

On Documents → Migrate, if Document Library is installed you'll see a card with the number of documents FileDeck detected and an Import button. One click brings across:

• every document, with its title and description,
• your categories — sub-categories and all, with the nesting kept,
• tags, and
• each document's file — the same Media Library attachment for uploaded files, or the link for external ones.

It works with both the free Lite and paid Pro versions, runs in the background, and lets you import as drafts to review first. Like the other importers it's safe to run again — anything already imported is skipped, never duplicated, and your originals are never touched. See migrating from Document Library for the full walkthrough.

That's three of the most popular download and document plugins now covered, with more to come. Any other plugin that exports to CSV can be migrated with the CSV importer on the same screen.

Switching to FileDeck just got easier for one more crowd. Fresh off the Download Monitor importer, FileDeck Pro now brings a WordPress Download Manager library across in one click too — packages, categories, files and download counts included.

Import your WordPress Download Manager library

On Documents → Migrate, if WordPress Download Manager is installed you'll see a card with the number of packages FileDeck detected and an Import button. One click brings across:

• every package as a FileDeck document, with its title and description,
• your categories — sub-categories and all, with the nesting kept,
• tags,
• each package's file (linked as a Media Library attachment where it can be, otherwise by URL — including files in Download Manager's own upload folder),
• the download count for each package, and
• restricted packages (locked to roles or a password), which become documents limited to logged-in users.

Like the Download Monitor importer, it runs in the background, lets you import as drafts to review first, and is safe to run again — anything already imported is skipped, never duplicated, and your originals are never touched. See migrating from WordPress Download Manager for the full walkthrough.

More one-click importers are still to come; any other plugin that exports to CSV can be migrated with the CSV importer on the same screen in the meantime.

Moving to FileDeck from Download Monitor no longer means exporting spreadsheets or rebuilding your library by hand. FileDeck Pro now detects a Download Monitor library already on your site and copies it across — documents, categories, files and download counts included — with a single click.

One-click import from Download Monitor

On Documents → Migrate, FileDeck now shows a card for each supported plugin it finds on your site. If Download Monitor is present, you'll see how many downloads it detected and an Import button. One click brings across:

• every download as a FileDeck document, with its title and description,
• your categories — including sub-categories, with the nesting kept intact,
• tags,
• each download's current file (linked as a Media Library attachment where it can be, otherwise by URL — nothing is duplicated on disk),
• the total download count for each item, so your numbers don't reset, and
• "members only" downloads, which become documents restricted to logged-in users.

The import runs in the background, so you can start it and walk away — even a large library won't tie up your browser. Choose to publish the imported documents straight away, or bring them in as drafts to review first. It's safe to run again at any time: anything already imported is skipped, never duplicated, and your original Download Monitor content is left untouched. See migrating from Download Monitor for the full walkthrough.

More one-click importers are on the way; until then, any other plugin that can export to CSV can still be brought across with the existing CSV migrator on the same screen.

FileDeck Pro can now show a document as an always-visible viewer inside your page content — not just behind a click-to-open preview. Drop a PDF, spreadsheet, or slide deck straight onto a product page, a policy page, or a landing page.

Inline document embed

The new [filedeck_embed] shortcode and FileDeck: Document Embed block put a single document on the page as a persistent viewer. Pick the document, set the height, and optionally show its title as a caption. PDFs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, images, audio, and video are all supported — and anything that can't be shown in the browser falls back to a normal download button, so visitors never see a broken viewer.

It respects your access rules: a visitor who isn't allowed to view a document sees a lock instead, and protected files are served through the same signed, short-lived links used for downloads.

Now in Elementor too

If you build with Elementor, the same viewer is available as the FileDeck Document Embed widget — search for it in the widget panel, choose a document, and drag it into place. It sits alongside the existing FileDeck Library widget.

Fixes & improvements

• The document-preview engine now powers both the click-to-open lightbox and the new inline embed from one place, so the two always render a document the same way.

Four small display upgrades, all in the free plugin: featured images now open in a lightbox, the download button says whatever you want it to, and two new shortcode options keep large tables tidy.

Click a featured image to view it full-size

If your library shows the image column, clicking a document's featured image now opens it full-size in a lightbox instead of doing nothing. It's on by default — turn it off for any library with image_lightbox="0".

Call the download button whatever you like

"Download" is the right word for most libraries, but not all of them — a policy library might want "View policy", a press kit "Get the assets". Set the label site-wide under Documents → Settings → Download link text, or per library with dl_text="Get file".

Fixes & improvements

• New wrap="0" shortcode option truncates long titles and descriptions with an ellipsis so every document stays on a single row — handy for dense libraries.
• New scroll_offset shortcode option for themes with a sticky header: set your header's height (e.g. scroll_offset="80") and pagination jumps land just below it instead of underneath it.

A small SEO improvement for libraries that use supersede chains.

One document, one ranking

When you mark a document as superseded, its old page stays visible with the "superseded by" notice — but search engines used to treat old and new as competing pages. The old page now declares the current version as its canonical URL, so Google and AI answer engines consolidate ranking signal onto the live document instead of splitting it across every version you've ever published. If the newer version is restricted, public pages don't point at it.

Fixes & improvements

• The plugin description on wordpress.org now opens with a plain one-sentence definition of what FileDeck is.

A focused fix for sites using lead capture together with multi-select zip downloads.

One form, whole selection

With lead capture on, clicking Download selected as zip now opens the same "enter your details" form as a single download — and one submission covers the whole selection, so your visitors aren't asked once per file. Previously the zip request was refused outright (every document in it required a lead that was never collected) and the button failed without saying anything.

Fixes & improvements

• If a zip download does fail, the button now tells you — "Download failed — try again" — instead of failing silently.
• Bulk leads are recorded like any other lead, so nothing is lost from your lead list when visitors download in bulk.

FileDeck 2.12.0 adds client areas to Pro: assign people to a category and it becomes their private portal — the biggest new capability since cloud storage.

Per-client document portals

On any document category, enter your client's usernames or email addresses and that category becomes their space: only they (and site managers) can see it — in libraries, search, downloads, single pages, even WordPress' own APIs and sitemaps. An accountancy's per-client folders, an agency's deliverables, a consultancy's project rooms — one library, privately partitioned.

Client-area documents don't appear as padlocked rows in public libraries the way role- or password-restricted documents do. They're simply not there. A client's document titles are themselves private, so outsiders see nothing at all.

The "Your documents" page

Drop the new [filedeck_my_documents] shortcode on a page and every client who logs in sees just their own spaces — each area as a section with its name, description and library. Add uploads="1" and each area gains a Send us a document form: files clients send land in your moderation queue, never published until you approve them.

They hear about it before they ask

When you publish a document into a client area, its assigned people are emailed automatically — with the document name, the area, and a link. No more "I've uploaded it, go look" emails.

Fixes & improvements

• Client-area restrictions stack with role and password rules on the same category, and files vault automatically like any other restricted document.
• Everything composes: versions, review cycles, expiry, acknowledgments and (on the AI tier) per-recipient watermarking all work inside client areas.

FileDeck 2.11.0 adds two protection features to the AI tier, built for the documents you'd rather not see forwarded: dynamic PDF watermarking and view-only mode.

Dynamic PDF watermarking

Turn on one switch and every PDF FileDeck serves is stamped — at the moment of download — with a footer naming who received it, from your site, and when. Board packs, salary reviews, draft contracts: if a copy ever turns up where it shouldn't, the copy itself says whose it was. The stamp applies to single downloads, every PDF inside a zip, and view-only streams, so there's no unstamped side door. Logged-in users are named by email; visitors get the site and time only — FileDeck doesn't put IP addresses in documents.

We frame this honestly: a watermark is deterrence and provenance, not DRM. It doesn't make copying impossible — it makes every copy attributable, and that changes how people treat a document. If your server can't stamp (Ghostscript missing), FileDeck serves the original and logs it — protection never becomes an outage.

View-only documents

Some documents should be read, not kept. Tick View-only on a document and visitors read it in the browser — while the download button, zip inclusion and the raw file URL are all switched off (the file moves into the protected vault automatically). The library shows a View button that opens in a new tab; access rules and lead capture still apply. Signed share links you mint still download, by design.

Pair the two: a view-only document with watermarking on means what's on the visitor's screen already carries their name.

Fixes & improvements

• The activity log records view-only reads as view events and any watermark failure as watermark_fail, so both are auditable.
• Developers: new extension points on the serve path (filedeck_serve_path, filedeck_zip_entry_path, filedeck_force_stream, filedeck_doc_row) and watermark customisation filters (filedeck_watermark_text, filedeck_gs_path).

FileDeck 2.10.0 puts you in charge of what happens when someone clicks Download: whether the file saves or opens, who gets told about it, and how many downloads a person gets per day.

Force download or open in browser — per document, free

Until now, what happened after the click was up to each visitor's browser: PDFs usually opened in a tab, Office files usually saved, and no two setups behaved alike. Every document now has a Delivery setting — *force download* or *open in browser* — so the behaviour is yours to decide and identical for every visitor. "Open in browser" documents get a View button that opens in a new tab, so readers never lose their place in the library. Included in the free plugin.

Per-download notifications (Pro)

Know the moment a document is downloaded. Turn on notifications in Documents → Settings → Downloads and FileDeck sends an email (to any addresses you list) and/or a JSON webhook per download — including each file inside a zip selection. Point the webhook at Slack, Zapier or Make and download events flow straight into your tools. Emails are sensibly flood-capped; the webhook never slows the download itself.

Daily download quotas (Pro)

Give each user role — and logged-out visitors — a daily download ceiling. It's a fairness rule for members' areas and an anti-scraping brake for public libraries: over the limit, visitors get a polite "resets tomorrow" message. Zip downloads count per file so they can't sidestep the limit, and signed share links you mint stay exempt.

Fixes & improvements

• Documents set to "open in browser" are streamed with the correct headers even when they're in the protected vault, so the setting works for restricted files too.
• Developers: a new filedeck_downloaded action fires once per counted download, and the filedeck_download_allowed filter is the final allow/deny gate on every download and zip entry.

Following the table refresh, the AI chat box got the same treatment. Same questions, same grounded answers — it just looks and behaves a touch more polished.

A header that says what the box is

The Ask box now opens with an AI mark and a subline — "Answers come from 66 documents, with sources" — so visitors know exactly what they're talking to and where its answers come from before they type a word.

Citations that look like citations

Source chips under each answer now carry a small document icon, sit under a divider, and tidy up long document titles with an ellipsis. Answers the AI couldn't ground in your library render as an outlined bubble, and errors get a red tint — you can read an answer's trustworthiness at a glance.

Fixes & improvements

• Messages ease in with a subtle animation, which switches itself off if your device asks for reduced motion.
• The send button now stays dimmed until a question reaches the three-character minimum, instead of accepting a click and silently doing nothing.
• A cleaner send icon, visible keyboard-focus outlines throughout the box, and corner styling that matches the refreshed document table.

The table layout got a design pass. Same columns, same settings, same shortcode — your library just looks a lot more polished, with no action needed on your part.

The table is now a self-contained card

The search box, filters, and document count sit in a header strip at the top of a bordered, rounded card, with pagination in a footer. Column headers are compact and stay pinned to the top of the screen while you scroll a long library, and the search box gained a proper magnifier icon.

Clearer rows at a glance

Document titles now lead each row in bold, categories render as quiet pill tags instead of underlined links, and the Download button is outlined at rest — filling in on hover — so a 100-row library no longer reads as a wall of solid blue buttons. Preview and Download picked up crisp inline icons that render identically on every device (goodbye, eye emoji).

Fixes & improvements

• The document count now reads "66 documents", switching to "12 of 66" while a search or filter is active, instead of the cryptic "66 / 66".
• Keyboard users get a visible focus outline on every link, button, and filter.
• Multi-select checkboxes follow your accent color.
• The default accent is now FileDeck blue. If you've set a custom accent color in Settings or on a block, nothing changes — your color still wins.

A maintenance release. We ran a full security review across FileDeck and its supporting infrastructure, and this ships the resulting hardening along with a handful of reliability fixes. We'd encourage updating at your earliest convenience.

Fixes & improvements

• Security and reliability improvements.
• Saving settings no longer cleared your AI and chat provider keys on sites that pin the OCR key with a constant or environment variable.
• Indexing a very large or heavily compressed Office document no longer stalls the search index rebuild for the rest of your library.

Two small touches that make a library quicker to scan — an icon that matches each file's type, and a folder icon you can choose per category.

File-type icons on download buttons

If your download links use the icon or button with icon style, the icon now reflects the document's file type — a distinct mark for PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, archives, and images, with a plain document icon for everything else. Nothing to set up: pick the link style under Documents → Settings → Display and each button shows the right icon automatically.

A folder icon for each category

In the folder layout, every category can carry its own icon instead of the plain folder — a book, a briefcase, scales for legal, a clipboard for forms, a chart for reports, and more. Edit a category under Documents → Document Categories, pick a Folder icon from the built-in set, and save. Categories you leave on Default keep the standard folder icon, so nothing changes until you choose one.

Fixes & improvements

• The icons come from a small built-in set — no uploads to manage — and are decorative only, so screen readers still read each download's label and each folder's category name.

Search shows instant matches the moment you type, then keeps looking inside your documents' contents (and, on the AI plan, by meaning) a beat later. That second wave of results used to appear with no warning, which could look like the list was jumping on its own. Now a small spinner in the search box tells you when a deeper search is still running.

A spinner while the deeper search runs

The instant results still appear right away. While FileDeck keeps searching — inside file contents, or semantically on the AI plan — a subtle spinner shows in the search field and clears the moment those extra matches land. So a growing result list now reads as "still working," not "something glitched."

It applies everywhere: quick libraries that filter in the browser, and large libraries that fetch each page from the server.

Fixes & improvements

• The document search box now shows a progress spinner while a content or semantic search is still resolving, so late-arriving matches no longer look like an unexplained jump in the results.
• The spinner respects your system's reduced-motion setting and announces its busy state to screen readers.