FileDeck – Document Library & Download Manager

FileDeck is a WordPress plugin for documents, downloads and client portals. It turns file collections into a fast, searchable document library with table, grid, gallery and folder layouts; tracks and protects every download; and gives each client a private document portal. List policies, guides, minutes, forms, resources, or any downloadable files — a PDF library, an Office-document archive, a mixed media collection — with instant search that filters as you type, and have a professional document library on your site in minutes. For teams that need more than a file list, Pro adds document management proper — version history, review and approval cycles, scheduled expiry and a full audit trail.

See it in action: try the live demo — the real plugin with a full sample library, no signup — or read the documentation.

A free version that’s actually usable. Every layout, every filter, and the Gutenberg block are free, and you can list as many documents as you like. Nothing essential is locked away just to force an upgrade.

What you won’t find elsewhere

• Full-text document search – Pro searches inside your PDFs, Office and text files (with optional OCR for scanned documents) — on your own server, so documents never leave your site
• One-click migration – switching from Download Monitor, Simple Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Document Library Lite/Pro, Shared Files, Simple File List, Advanced File Manager, BSK PDF Manager, Download Attachments, WP Customer Area or FileBird? FileDeck imports your whole library straight from your own database — no export files, no column mapping
• Large file uploads – drawings, scans and video upload in resumable chunks, so your host’s upload limit is no longer the ceiling and a dropped connection resumes instead of restarting
• Library event webhooks – a signed JSON POST when a document is published, updated, retired or deleted; point Zapier, Make or your own system at it
• Client areas – give each client a private document portal with uploads and email notifications

Free features

• Four layouts – searchable table, responsive card grid, a thumbnail-forward document gallery, or collapsible folders that follow your category hierarchy, sub-folders and all, in the order you choose
• Instant search – filters as you type, no page reloads
• Date-added filter – narrow a library to the past week, month or year (optional)
• AI-agent ready – read-only abilities for WordPress 6.9’s Abilities API, so agents can search the library through MCP
• Sortable columns – title, date, size, type, downloads, and more
• Unlimited documents – no cap; search scales automatically as your library grows
• Download tracking – per-document download counts
• Force download or open in browser – choose per document whether the button saves the file or displays it in the browser, instead of leaving it to each visitor’s browser defaults
• Gutenberg block + shortcode + Elementor, Bricks & Divi – native block with live preview, a [filedeck] shortcode, and native elements for Elementor (Library, Document Embed — also findable as “PDF Viewer” — and Search widgets), Bricks and Divi (Library and Document Embed elements) — all with the same layout, filter and column options
• Translation-ready – documents and categories translate with WPML, Polylang and compatible plugins; a bundled wpml-config.xml declares exactly how document data behaves (one file, many languages)
• ⌘K command palette – site-wide quick-search overlay that jumps straight to any document
• Sidebar widgets & Popular Documents block – Recent Documents and Top Downloads widgets for any sidebar, plus a Popular Documents block that puts the most-downloaded (or newest) list on any page; access-aware, so restricted documents never show to someone who cannot open them
• QR codes – generate a printable QR for any document (offline, nothing leaves your site) for noticeboards and posters
• Multi-select filters with counts – pick several categories or tags at once, see how many documents sit behind every option before you click, and drop any single one from the active-filter bar; put the filters above the library or under the column headings, and click a category in the table to filter by it
• Multi-column sorting – click a heading to sort, shift-click a second to break the ties (file type, then newest first)
• Shareable filtered views – search, filters, sort order and page all live in the URL with a one-click “copy link”; hover previews show a thumbnail and file details
• Pagination your way – page numbers, a Load more button or infinite scroll, plus an optional fixed library height that scrolls the documents in place
• External links – list documents hosted on Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, or any URL — pasted Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive links embed as live previews
• Custom field & taxonomy columns – add any post meta (cf:field) or taxonomy (tax:slug) as a column; Pro adds the field builder that defines those fields, fields that apply only to chosen categories, and one-click import of your existing ACF field groups
• Document previews – lightbox preview for PDFs and images, and featured images open in a lightbox from the image column
• Inline document embed – embed a single document as an always-visible viewer on any page with the [filedeck_embed] shortcode, the Document Embed block or the Elementor widget: PDFs, images and Google links, with width and height controls, an optional download link and a full-screen button
• Single document pages – a clean page with file details and a download button
• Standalone search & links – [filedeck_search], [filedeck_login], and [filedeck_download] shortcodes
• Styles to match any theme – a full design-token system: a “Match my theme” preset that inherits your theme’s colours, Minimal/Bordered/Compact presets, a built-in light/dark/auto colour scheme, accent + surface + text colours, plus link styles, custom download-button text, empty messages and pagination — no CSS required, and every element is a --fdk-* variable when you want to go further
• Any file type – PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, images, audio, video, and more
• Lightweight – no jQuery on the frontend; assets load only where a library appears
• Accessible – keyboard-sortable columns, ARIA labels, screen-reader friendly

Switching from another plugin?

If you’re looking for a Download Monitor alternative, a WordPress Download Manager alternative, or a Document Library Pro alternative, FileDeck Pro imports your existing library in one click — documents, nested categories, tags, files, and (where the source records them) download counts and access rules — read straight from your own database. Shared Files libraries import the same way. No export files, no column mapping, safe to re-run, and we’ll help you move free if you’d like a hand.

Using Simple File List? Its wordpress.org listing has been closed since 23 July 2026 (marked temporary, pending review), so it can’t currently be installed or updated from the directory. If you’d rather move, FileDeck imports your entire Simple File List library in one click — files, folders and descriptions — straight from your own database.

FileDeck Pro

Upgrade for the features organizations need — from $59/year, your renewal never increases, and every purchase is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee:

• Full-text search inside files – search the text inside PDFs, Office documents and text files (optional OCR makes scanned PDFs searchable too); extraction runs on your own server, and results tell you which page of a PDF the match is on so you can jump straight to it
• Access control – role restrictions on categories, password protection on a category or any single document, plus assigning a document to specific named people or to a group you define once and reuse — an assigned document is hidden from everyone else, not padlocked. Site-wide IP rules can limit downloads to your own networks, and a refused visitor can be sent to a page of your own instead of a dead end
• Protected files – restricted files move to a deny-all vault and stream only after an access check, so direct file URLs stop working; optional signed links expire, for sharing with someone who can’t log in, and a single-use link works for exactly one download and then stops. Optional hotlink protection refuses downloads requested from other sites’ pages
• Client areas – per-client private portals with front-end submission, moderation and new-document emails; admit people by name, by group, or by email domain so a whole company gets in without being listed one by one. Add a personal download history so each person can see what they already took, and new/already-downloaded markers so a portal shows what has changed since their last visit
• One-click migration – from Download Monitor, Simple Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Document Library Lite/Pro, Shared Files, Simple File List, Advanced File Manager, BSK PDF Manager, Download Attachments, WP Customer Area and FileBird (see above)
• Import a server folder – point FileDeck at a folder in your uploads directory and every file becomes a document, with sub-folders becoming nested categories; an optional daily re-scan imports new files on their own, so SFTP-ing a file in is enough to publish it
• Automatic PDF thumbnails – plus Office, audio and video previews and inline embeds on top of the free PDF/image lightbox and embed
• Self-hosted PDF viewer – embedded PDFs render from your own server with zoom, in-document find, print and full screen; because no external viewer service is involved, protected files, signed links and watermarked documents all display. Popup mode opens any embed in an overlay that loads only when clicked
• Document lifecycle – version history, supersede with evergreen links, review cycles, approval workflow and auto-expiry
• Check-out & editing locks – claim a document while you prepare its next revision, so nobody else can replace the attached file until you check it back in
• Downloads toolkit – email/webhook download notifications, daily quotas, per-document download limits (expire after N downloads), optional Cloudflare Turnstile bot friction, lead capture with Mailchimp/Brevo sync, multi-select zip downloads with a select-all control in the table header, and Download all on a folder
• Require a form before download – gate downloads behind Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7 or any other form plugin you already use
• Attach documents to a post – tick documents in the post editor and they list automatically at the end of the page
• Terms before download – require readers to accept licence conditions or a disclaimer first, with every acceptance recorded in the activity log
• Analytics & audit – activity log with per-document history (now including country, referrer and user agent), a running per-document view count you can show as a library column, analytics dashboard, optional GA4 events, CSV export
• Search synonyms & spelling tolerance – teach the library your own shorthand so “PO” finds “purchase order”, and let a search that returned no results retry against the closest spelling in your titles and categories, saying which word it used
• Search analytics – popular searches and a content-gap report of searches that found nothing, fed by every search box: library search, the command palette, full-text and AI search
• Document feedback – anonymous “Was this helpful?” votes on document pages, with a least-helpful report (off until you enable it)
• Cloud storage – browse and attach files from Amazon S3 or any S3-compatible service (Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces), plus Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint document libraries and Box
• Vault offload – mirror protected files into an S3-compatible bucket and serve downloads by short-lived presigned link, so the bucket carries the bandwidth while every access check still runs first
• Multisite shared libraries – render one site’s library on any other site of a WordPress network, with the source site’s access rules still enforcing
• Publish & embed – put your whole library on any other website (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow, Framer, or a custom front end) with one line of code; embeds show public documents only

Plus custom fields with faceted filtering, CSV import/export, bulk add from the Media Library, change subscriptions, a library health monitor, a GDPR toolkit and more — see every feature. An optional AI tier adds records governance — retention schedules, access certification, transmittals, acknowledgment tracking and PDF accessibility screening — plus semantic search, smart collections and “Ask this library”. Full pricing: https://www.getfiledeck.com/pricing/

Download Monitor, Simple Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Document Library Pro, Document Library Lite, Shared Files, Simple File List, Advanced File Manager, BSK PDF Manager, Download Attachments, WP Customer Area, FileBird, and FileBird Document Library are trademarks of their respective owners; FileDeck is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

Quick start

1. Install and activate. FileDeck creates a “Document Library” page automatically.
2. Go to Documents → Add New, add a title, and attach a file (or paste an external URL).
3. Done — the document appears in your library instantly.

Use the Document Library block or the [filedeck] shortcode to place libraries anywhere:

Shortcode options

• layout – table, grid, gallery, or folders
• columns – comma-separated: id, image, title, excerpt, content, categories, tags, date, modified, author, size, type, filename, downloads, views, preview, link (views needs Pro activity logging)
• category – limit to category slugs (comma-separated)
• per_page – documents per page
• sort_by – title, date, modified, menu_order
• sort_order – asc or desc
• link_style – button, button_icon, button_icon_only, icon, icon_text, text
• dl_text – custom text for the download button/link (default “Download”)
• image_lightbox – set to 0 to stop featured images opening in a lightbox
• wrap – set to 0 to keep every document on a single truncated row
• scroll_offset – pixel offset for pagination jumps, for themes with a sticky header

External services

This plugin can connect to these external services, all only with your opt-in:

Freemius — FileDeck uses Freemius to deliver plugin updates, and (for Pro customers) to activate licenses. On activation you are asked to opt in; if you decline, no data is sent and only anonymous update checks are made. If you opt in, Freemius receives basic environment data (site URL, WordPress/PHP versions, active theme/plugins) to power update delivery and diagnostics. This happens when you activate the plugin, opt in, activate a license, or check for updates. Freemius terms: https://freemius.com/terms/ — privacy policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/

FileDeck usage ping — only if you opted in to usage tracking above (and never otherwise), FileDeck sends a small anonymous ping to https://in.getfiledeck.com/telemetry once a week to guide the product roadmap. It contains only the plugin/PHP/WordPress versions, the plan tier, a bucketed document count (e.g. “11–50”), a handful of feature flags — on, off, or not-applicable when the feature isn’t in this build (search index, OCR, AI mode, subscriptions, sample library used), and how the setup wizard ended (completed, skipped, or dismissed). It never includes document contents, file names, URLs, emails, IP-based profiles, or any personal data. Declining or opting out …