Features

Four layouts

Table, grid, gallery or collapsible folders that follow your category hierarchy, sub-folders and all, with each folder counting everything beneath it — switch per library. The Gallery layout puts large thumbnails first for covers, plans and artwork; in free, a tile shows the featured image you set, and automatic thumbnails taken from the file itself — a PDF’s first page, an image’s own preview — are Pro. Choose columns (title, type, size, date, categories and more), set sort order and pagination.

Filter by date added, or by year

An Any time / Past week / month / year control, so a long library narrows to what arrived recently; and a year filter that lists the years your documents span, read from their dates — minutes, newsletters and accounts filed by year, with no category per year to maintain. Both off until you switch them on, per library if you want. Pre-filter without a control too: period="30" for a “recent additions” block, year="2025" for one year’s minutes.

A section per category

One library rendered as titled sections, one per category, each with its count — the downloads page most sites build by stacking a library per category, from a single group_by="category". One search box and one set of filters across all of them; a section with nothing left hides.

Reference numbers

A part number, document code or form number on every document. Visitors can search for it — 0208 finds DOC-0208 — and it shows as its own sortable column, so titles stop carrying the code.

AI agents can search it

FileDeck describes itself to WordPress 6.9’s Abilities API, so agents like Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT can search your library through the MCP Adapter. Read-only by design, and access-filtered: a restricted document does not appear — not even its title — and agents get a page link rather than a download URL.

Instant search & multi-select filters

Results filter as you type across titles, categories and tags — no page reloads. Pick several categories or tags at once, see the filter counts beside every option before you commit to one, and drop any single one of them from the list of active filters above the library. Put the filters in the bar above, or under the column headings.

Sort by more than one column

Click a heading to sort; shift-click a second to break the ties — file type, then newest first. The address bar follows the search, filters, sort and page you are on, so the view you are looking at is the view you can copy and send. Choose page numbers, a Load more button or infinite scroll, and give a library a fixed height if you would rather it scrolled in place.

Block, shortcode + page builders

Drop the Document Library block on any page, use the [filedeck] shortcode, or native Elementor widgets — Library, Document Embed (find it as “PDF Viewer” too) and Search — with Document Library and Document Embed elements for Bricks, Divi, WPBakery, Avada (Fusion Builder) and Beaver Builder as well. On Classic Editor, the Document library button builds the shortcode for you. Scope a library to a category or tag anywhere — and a translation plugin (WPML, Polylang) picks up documents, categories and tags via the bundled wpml-config.

Library builder

Design a library by clicking, not by typing shortcode attributes: layout, columns, categories, sorting, filters, download links, colours and messages. Each change redraws a preview on your own site, in your theme, as a logged-out visitor sees it. When it looks right, create the page in one click or copy the [filedeck] shortcode into any page builder. The Document Library block opens the same builder.

Unlimited documents

No caps on documents, categories or tags. Ever.

Drag-and-drop bulk add

Drop one file or fifty onto the Upload Documents screen — each becomes a published document, titled from its filename. Set a category and tags first and they apply to the whole batch. (Picking files you already have in the Media Library, and CSV import, are Pro.)

⌘K quick search

A site-wide command palette jumps visitors straight to any document.

Sidebar widgets

Recent Documents and Top Downloads widgets for any sidebar or block area, plus a Popular Documents block for any page — all access-aware, so a restricted document never shows to someone who cannot open it.

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.

Inline document embed

Embed a single document as an always-visible viewer inside any page — PDFs, images, and pasted Google Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drive links — via shortcode, block or Elementor widget. Set width and height, add a download link and a full-screen button, and choose the viewer engine. Pro extends it to Office files, audio and video.

Document pages

Every document has a page of its own: its description, a short list of details, then the Download button. Choose the details on the Display tab — reference, published and updated dates, categories and tags, plus author and download count if you want them. A detail a document doesn’t have is left out rather than shown blank.

Styles that match your theme

Pick “Match my theme” and the library inherits your theme’s colours, or set an accent colour and be done. Minimal, Bordered and Compact presets, a light / dark / auto colour scheme, surface and text colours, link styles, your own download-button wording, and your own “no documents” and “no search results” messages — no CSS required. Every element is also a --fdk-* variable when you do want to go further.

Files you host elsewhere

A document can point at a URL instead of an uploaded file — Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, SharePoint, S3 or any link at all. It sits in the library, sorts and filters like every other document, and nothing is copied onto your server. (Pro adds a cloud connector that browses the account for you and pulls new files on a schedule.)

Old links keep working

Moved a library over from Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Simple Download Monitor, Shared Files or Simple File List? Once the old plugin is switched off, its download links, item and category pages and shortcodes open your FileDeck documents, so posts, menus and old emails keep working. BSK PDF Manager’s shortcodes do too. The one-click import is Pro; this part is free, so it carries on if a licence lapses.

Fast & accessible

No jQuery on the front end, keyboard-navigable tables with ARIA labelling, and it works with any theme.

Theme template overrides

When CSS is not enough and you need different markup, copy a template into your theme’s filedeck/ directory — child theme first, then parent, then the plugin’s own copy. The row and the empty state are overridable today, and the files you copy are the ones FileDeck actually renders. Access rules are applied before a row reaches a template, so a customised row is not a place a restriction can go missing.

Access control

Password or role restriction per category, a password on any single document, and per-document visibility — public, logged-in, author only, or assigned to specific named people.

Client portal

Add a client and FileDeck creates their account, a private area and an emailed invitation to choose their own password. Clients sign in on your site, not the WordPress dashboard, and see only their documents, what is new since their last visit, an upload form and their own account page. One Clients screen shows who has accepted, when each client last visited and what they have not seen yet — and lets you preview any client’s portal.

Client areas

Assign users to a category and it becomes their private client area: only they (and you) can open it, uploads go into your moderation queue, and they are emailed when you publish something new for them.

Membership-plan gating

Restrict a category or a document to holders of a MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, WooCommerce Memberships, Restrict Content Pro or s2Member plan — picked from a list, not copied into a second one you then keep in step. Access follows the membership: when it lapses the document goes with it. Other membership plugins can register themselves with a filter.

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, or expire a single document after a set number of downloads. Fair use for members’ areas, and an anti-scraping brake for public libraries.

Views as well as downloads

Every document keeps a running view count you can show and sort on with the views column. Kept alongside the activity log rather than read out of it, so trimming old log rows does not reset it — and with logging off the column shows a dash rather than a confident zero.

Bot protection

A quick CAPTCHA check before the first download of a visit stops scripted mass-downloading. Once per visitor per hour; logged-in users and signed share links are never challenged. Bring your own keys for either Cloudflare Turnstile (its free tier covers most sites) or Google reCAPTCHA v2, and switch it on. The one choice covers front-end submissions too.

IP rules

Allow downloads only from your office or VPN ranges, or block a specific address. IPv4, IPv6 and CIDR ranges, enforced on every download — signed share links included, so forwarding a link cannot route around the boundary. Administrators are never blocked, so a typo cannot lock you out.

Single-use links

Hand one document to one person with a link that works for exactly one download and then stops. No account needed at the other end, and it expires after 7 days if unused. The use is only spent once the download actually succeeds — a request turned away by a quota or an IP rule leaves the link intact.

Access by email domain

Give a whole company a client area with one entry — @acme.example admits everyone with an address at that domain, and you can still name individuals alongside it. It is a rule, not a shortcut: someone who joins that domain next month gets in without anyone editing the category.

Groups

Name a set of people once, then give that group a client area or a document. Change the membership and every grant follows — remove someone and they lose access everywhere at once. Groups sit alongside individually named people and domain rules; a person gets in by matching any one of them.

Search synonyms

Teach the library your vocabulary: one line per group and “PO” finds “purchase order”. Each word you type is still required — a synonym widens what satisfies it rather than loosening the search, so “PO template” never starts returning everything containing “order”.

Spelling tolerance

A search that finds nothing retries against the closest spelling and says which word it used. Only ever a fallback — a search that found something is never second-guessed — and corrections come from your titles and categories, not from a stray word inside a PDF.

New & downloaded markers

Signed-in visitors see what has arrived since they last looked, and what they have already taken is quietly dimmed. Read from the activity log and a per-person timestamp — nothing new is recorded about anyone, and logged-out visitors get no markers at all.

When access is refused

Send someone who opens a document they cannot reach to a “request access” page instead of a dead end. Documents whose very existence is private — anything assigned to named people, a group or a client area — are never redirected, because that would confirm they exist.

Download history

The client portal lists what each client has already taken, newest first, still linked — and

Hotlink protection

Stop other sites embedding your download links and spending your bandwidth. Only requests arriving with a foreign referrer are refused — pasted URLs, bookmarks and emailed links send none and keep working, and signed share links are always exempt.

Terms before download

Require readers to accept licence conditions or a disclaimer before any file is served — and keep every acceptance in the activity log, with the document, time and visitor.

Require a form before download

Gate downloads behind the form you already use — Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7 or any other. Paste its shortcode; a submission unlocks downloads for an hour.

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.

Vault offload

Serve protected files from your own S3 or R2 bucket by short-lived presigned link — the bucket does the bandwidth, and every FileDeck access gate still runs first. Local files stay for previews and search.

Password protection

Put one password on a whole category — visitors unlock it once and stay unlocked for the visit, and repeated wrong guesses are rate-limited. A single document can carry its own password too.

Role restrictions

Map WordPress roles to categories: staff see internal documents, members see member packs, and everyone else sees neither — including in search results and widgets.

Activity log & audit trail

Views, searches, downloads and admin actions (publish, update, supersede, approve) — who, when, what — with CSV export.

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.

Content-gap report

See what visitors searched for and didn’t find — the documents they wanted but you don’t have yet. Every search box feeds it: library search, the ⌘K palette, full-text and AI search.

Document feedback

“Was this helpful?” votes on document pages — anonymous, one click, off until you enable it — with a least-helpful report so you know exactly which documents to fix first.

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.

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.

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.

Library event webhooks

A signed document.published POST when the library changes — published, updated, retired or deleted. Point Zapier, Make or your own system at it.

REST API & WP-CLI

A formal, documented integration surface: REST routes, signed webhooks for every library event, and WP-CLI commands for listing, importing and reindexing — stable enough to script against.

Cloud storage

Browse and attach files from Amazon S3 — or any S3-compatible service like Cloudflare R2, Wasabi and DigitalOcean Spaces — plus Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint document libraries and Box, with a scheduled one-way pull that imports new files automatically.

Import, export & migrate

One-click import from Download Monitor, Simple Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Document Library, Shared Files, Simple File List, Advanced File Manager, BSK PDF Manager, Download Attachments, WP Customer Area and FileBird — documents, categories, files and more, no CSV step. Bring any other library across by CSV, and export yours back out any time.

Bulk convert your Media Library

Turn the files already in your Media Library into documents in one screen — pick them in bulk, apply a category as you go, and nothing is duplicated on disk.

Mailing-list sync

Send captured download leads straight to Mailchimp or Brevo — double opt-in by default, existing contacts never re-subscribed, and a webhook covers every other provider via Zapier or Make.

Multisite shared libraries

One central library, rendered on any site of the network with a single shortcode attribute — the central site’s access rules and activity log do the enforcing. No copies, nothing to drift.

Publish & embed anywhere

One line of code puts your whole library on any other website — Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow, Framer, or a custom Astro/Next.js front end. WordPress stays the engine; embeds show public documents only.