Import from a server folder (drop-folder workflow) Pro

Plenty of libraries start life as a folder of PDFs on the server — uploaded by SFTP, accumulated over years, organised by sub-folder. Documents → Migrate → Import from a server folder turns that folder into a library: every file becomes a document, sub-folders become nested categories, and file modification dates become document dates.

FileDeck Pro — on the Migrate screen, below the one-click importers.

Setting it up

1. Enter the folder path — it must live inside wp-content/uploads (that’s a deliberate safety rule, not a limitation: FileDeck will never sideload arbitrary server files into your Media Library, and it refuses anything that looks like a WordPress install root).
2. Save. The Server folder card above shows how many importable files it found — code files and anything outside WordPress’s own allowed-upload list are never counted.
3. Import, as published documents or drafts. The job runs in resumable background chunks like every FileDeck import.

The drop-folder workflow

Tick Re-scan daily for new files and the folder becomes a drop folder: SFTP a file in, and within a day it appears in the library, filed by its sub-folder. Only additions are imported — a file changed in place is never re-imported (replacing a document’s file is versioning’s job, done deliberately in its editor), and deleting a file from the folder never deletes the document. One-way, additive, no surprises.

Re-running the import by hand does the same thing immediately: files already imported are skipped, new ones come in.