by WP Folio Team 4.6 (297 reviews)

Prevent Direct Access - Protect WordPress Files

Name: Prevent Direct Access - Protect WordPress Files
Rating: 4.6 (297 reviews)
Author: WP Folio Team

A simple way to prevent search engines and the public from indexing and accessing your files without complex user authentication.

Prevent Direct Access ranks #1,863 among WordPress.org plugins with 10,000+ active installations, is #192 of 6,305 in the Media category, a 4.6/5 rating from 297 reviews, and was last updated Aug 27, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Compatible with WP 7.1

v2.8.9.1 Current Version v2.8.9.1

Updated 2 weeks ago Last Update on 27 Aug, 2026

Refreshed 10 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#192 of 6,305 in Media Top 5% by installs Downloads -41.2% this week Actively maintained

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#1,863

+1 this week

Active Installs

10K+

-30.7%

KW Avg Position

25.4

0.6 worse

Downloads

263K

+116 today

Support Resolved

100%

— No change

Rating

92%

Review 4.6 out of 5

4.6 (297 reviews)

Next Milestone 20K

Total Progress 44.8%

10K+ 20K+

442

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

Pro

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Need 5,519 more installs to reach 20K+

Rank Changes

Current #1,863

Change

Best #

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

4.6

297 reviews

Overall 92%

266 (90%)

3 (1%)

4 (1%)

21 (7%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

100%

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

3 known vulnerabilities on record · 3 in the last 24 months · checked 1 week ago

Aug 12, 2026

Prevent Direct Access – Protect WordPress Files [prevent-direct-access] < 2.8.8.9

CVE-2026-3835 · Fixed in v2.8.8.9
Apr 24, 2025

Prevent Direct Access – Protect WordPress Files [prevent-direct-access] < 2.8.8.1

CVE-2025-3923 · Fixed in v2.8.8.1
Apr 24, 2025

Prevent Direct Access – Protect WordPress Files [prevent-direct-access] >= 2.8.6 - <= 2.8.8.2

CVE-2025-3861 · Affected >= 2.8.6 <= 2.8.8.2

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Plugin Details

Version: 2.8.9.1
Last Updated: Aug 27, 2026
Requires WP: 4.7+
Tested Up To: 7.1
PHP Version: 7.0 or higher
Author: WP Folio Team

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.6
Reviews: 297
Support Threads: 1
Resolved: 100%

Keywords

copy protection downloads folder protection protection uploads

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners who upload private files like ebooks, documents, and videos through the Media Library. It solves the problem of unauthorized users, search engines, and hotlinkers accessing or indexing files that should remain restricted to admins and specific users.

Protect unlimited Media Library uploads
Custom "No Access" page
Auto-generate private download URLs
Restrict access by IP address
Block Google indexing of files
Prevent image hotlinking
Protect uploads directory
Disable copy and right-click

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Prevent Direct Access - Protect WordPress Files

It's likely that you're using an outdated version of PHP. Please check and upgrade the PHP version on your server to 5.6 or greater. In fact, WordPress itself even recommends your host supports PHP version 7.2 or greater for security purposes.

Prevent Direct Access supports websites hosted on Apache servers out of the box. In case you're using WP Engine or other NGINX servers, please check out this instruction on how to update the server configuration for our plugin (Both Lite and Gold version) to work as expected. In case you’re using Internet Information Services (IIS) web server, please check out this instruction on how to update the server configuration for our plugin (Both Lite and Gold version) to work as expected.

The plugin needs to add some mod_rewrite rules to your website .htaccess file (located on your website root folder) to prevent direct access to your files on the server. So it's likely that your .htaccess is not writable (with at least 644 permissions; whose owner must be also accessible by your apache server such as www-data). If that's the case, you must either make it writable or manually update your .htaccess with the mod_rewrite rules found under Settings > Permalinks.

Since PDA Lite version 2.7.7, you can protect unlimited files under your Media Library.

The Lite version of this plugin only supports Apache, Nginx, and IIS single sites. Multisite mode is supported in our Gold version with the PDA Multisite extension installed.