FileDeck – Document Library & Download Manager

Changelog

2.108.0

• New: the Library builder (Documents → Library builder) designs a library with a live preview on your own site, in your theme, as a visitor or as you. Create the page in one click or copy its shortcode; paste an existing shortcode to keep editing it. The Document Library block opens the same builder, and its preview in the editor now uses FileDeck’s styles.
• After a one-click import from Download Monitor, WordPress Download Manager, Simple Download Monitor, Shared Files or Simple File List, the old plugin’s download links, item pages and shortcodes (where it had them) keep working once you switch it off — in the free plugin.
• Document pages list a document’s reference, published and updated dates, categories and tags above the Download button; choose which under Documents → Settings → Display → Document pages, including an optional download count.
• Pro: importing from Download Monitor brings older versions into each document’s version history; importing from WordPress Download Manager brings every file in a multi-file package. Run an import again to fill in what an earlier one left out.
• Pro: client-area emails reach the people who can open a new document (up to 200 per document) — named people, group members and email-domain matches — including batch uploads, block-editor publishing, scheduled documents and sub-folders. Imports stay quiet.
• The default-columns setting keeps the Reference and Views columns on save.
• Security and reliability improvements.
• The wordpress.org listing shows the full description and the external-services disclosure; both had been cut short.

2.107.2

• The plugin’s description on wordpress.org fits the directory’s length limit again, so the whole of it shows; it had been cut short. Older changelog entries moved to changelog.txt in the plugin folder. This release changes the listing only; the plugin works as before.

2.107.1

• The plugin’s description on wordpress.org now says what FileDeck is used for: safety data sheets and product documentation, meeting minutes and newsletters by year, school and staff policies, client file sharing and public reports. This release changes the description; the plugin works as before.

2.107.0

• Pro: a “Test connection” button on the Scanned OCR settings tab checks that the saved Service URL reaches an OCR service, and says why when it doesn’t.
• Pro: pasting an email redirect link as the OCR Service URL (the long google.com/url?q= or Outlook Safe Links form an email client can turn a link into) now saves the address inside it. A Service URL with a query string, or one that isn’t https or points at a private network, is refused with a message saying why. Until now such a URL was either saved as-is, sending scans to the wrong address, or silently not saved.

2.106.1

• Instant search finds titles written in your site’s language. On a Danish site, “møde”, “bestyrelsesmøde” and “ø” now find “Bestyrelsesmøde”; on a German site, “prüfung” and “pruefung” both find “Prüfungsordnung”, and “strasse” finds “Straße”. Letters such as ø, æ, å, ß and umlauts could make a search miss, because the library and the search box spelled them differently.
• Instant search finds titles in Cyrillic, Greek, Korean and Japanese as you type them. Letters such as й and ё, accented Greek vowels, Korean syllables, Japanese kana with voicing marks, and capital Cyrillic and Greek letters could make a search miss.

2.106.0

• Pro: one-click imports bring across a password set with WordPress’s own Password protected visibility. The imported document asks for the same password before its file can be downloaded, and FileDeck protects its own copy of the file. For documents imported before this release, the Migrate screen lists any that don’t yet ask for their item’s password, with a button to add the same passwords.
• Pro: Settings → Health lists documents that use the same file as a restricted document without the same restrictions, with a link to edit each, so you can decide whether the file should stay private.
• Security and reliability improvements across the library, document pages, imports, exports and embeds, in the free plugin and Pro. If your site uses a page cache, clear it once after updating.

2.105.1

• Pro: on sites that run WordPress on SQLite (for example WordPress Playground, Studio by WordPress.com, or the SQLite Database Integration plugin), search could match words a document no longer contains. Updating fixes this, re-indexing in the background where needed.
• Pro: on a server missing a PHP extension FileDeck needs to read PDFs (zlib, iconv or mbstring), PDFs are no longer counted as scans or sent for OCR, including PDFs an earlier version had already counted: there, a PDF with a text layer can’t be told apart from a scan. The Search Index tab names the missing extensions. On every server, each PDF is now checked again just before it is sent, and one that turns out to have a text layer stays on your site.
• Pro: a document moved to a byte-identical copy of its file keeps its OCR text instead of dropping it.
• Pro: switching scanned-PDF OCR back on no longer sends scans that were still waiting for room in the queue when it was switched off, including when it was switched off while the license had lapsed.

2.105.0

• Pro: Settings → Health lists restricted documents whose imported original is still public. A one-click import gives a restricted document its own protected copy and leaves the original where the old plugin keeps it, so anyone with a direct link to that original can still open it. Each row names the file and offers to delete it, or to move it into protected storage if you’d rather keep it. Deleting is offered only when the file isn’t used by another document and isn’t linked from a post, page or menu (in its content, a custom menu link, Elementor’s page data or as its featured image), and isn’t your site icon or logo; links kept anywhere else aren’t checked, so look before you delete. Either way, the old plugin’s link to that file stops working.
• Pro: Settings → Health also lists restricted documents whose file could not be moved into protected storage, and imported documents that arrived without their file. These checks include drafts, and the weekly Health email reports them. An import that leaves a restricted file unprotected says so in its summary, with a link to Health.
• Pro: running a WP Customer Area import again finishes a document that an interrupted run left without its file. The document stays a draft for you to publish.
• Pro: re-running a WP Customer Area import leaves the client areas it made earlier, and the people you’ve added to them, as they are.
• Pro: a Download Monitor download whose file is in Download Monitor’s protected dlm_uploads folder gets its own copy in FileDeck, so its Download button works. It used to link the file where Download Monitor keeps it, which the server refuses to serve.
• Security and reliability improvements to the one-click importers.

2.104.1

• Pro: signed-in members get the restricted documents they’re allowed to have when lead capture or terms acceptance is switched on. Leaving their details or accepting the terms used to end in an error instead of the file.
• Pro: a member’s zip includes the restricted documents they selected, and searching inside documents finds text in restricted documents they’re allowed to read. Both used to leave those documents out.
• Pro: daily download limits, terms acceptance, lead capture and the form and bot checks apply to restricted documents’ Download buttons the same way they apply to every other document. Share links you create yourself (single-use links and transmittals) still skip them. If you set daily download limits, downloads of restricted documents now count towards them, whether by members or by visitors who unlocked a password-protected category.
• Pro: the [filedeck_download] button and an embedded document’s download link show the lead form, terms or check when one is switched on, instead of an error.
• AI plan: a view-only restricted document opens for the people it’s shared with, from the library and from its own page. A view-only document’s own page shows the lead form, terms or check when one is switched on, and with lead capture on, a view-only document opens after the form instead of showing an error.
• Security and reliability improvements.

2.104.0

• Pro: with scanned-PDF OCR switched on, each scanned PDF you publish is now sent for OCR automatically, so it becomes searchable without anyone going back to the Search Index tab. Before, a scan added after OCR was switched on waited until someone pressed Send again. Scans that were already in your library when you switched OCR on, and scans added on the Import & Export screen (bulk add, including files dropped there, a CSV import or a migration), still wait for you to press Send. New scans go one at a time in the background, within the same 100-a-day fair-use limit as before.
• Pro: replacing a scanned document’s file with a new scan now makes the new file searchable. Before, the old scan’s OCR text stayed in the search index for the new file, and the new scan wasn’t sent. This also holds when the file is replaced while the old scan is still being read.
• Pro: a scanned PDF that you unpublish or move to the trash before its turn in the OCR queue is no longer sent.

2.102.0

• Pro: a one-click import keeps the old plugin working alongside FileDeck, restricted files included. A restricted document gets its own copy of its file in FileDeck’s protected storage, and the old plugin’s original stays where it was, so its download links keep working while you check the new library, whether you publish the import or bring it in as drafts. This applies to files kept on this site; a file linked from another site stays a link. Access you add in FileDeck after the import still moves that document’s file into protected storage, so the old plugin’s link to it stops working from then on. Once you’ve switched, delete the originals that no page or other document still uses: until then they’re only as private as the old plugin kept them. The import summary says how many documents got their own copy. If a copy can’t be made, the original is protected instead, and the summary says how many files that affected.
• Pro: a WP Customer Area file that FileDeck can’t match to an owner, including one with no owner at all, arrives as a draft for logged-in users only, ready for you to assign to a client area. Files that were private or unpublished in WP Customer Area arrive as drafts too.
• Pro: a Download Attachments file that wasn’t listed on any published post arrives as a draft.
• Security and reliability improvements to the one-click importers and to attaching files from the Library Health screen.

2.101.1

• Pro: signed-in visitors can download a restricted document whose file is a link to another site. The people it was shared with (logged-in users, named people, groups, membership plans, restricted categories, client areas) saw it in the library, but its Download button gave them an error instead of the file. The same fix covers the occasional restricted uploaded file that showed that error. Visitors without access still get no link. No setting needs changing: the fix takes effect the next time the page loads. On the AI plan, a view-only document whose file is a link to another site no longer shows a Download button.

2.101.0

• The table layout keeps its shape while visitors search, filter, sort or page. Each column holds the width it had when the library first appeared, instead of re-flowing to fit whatever rows match. A table too wide for its space keeps its horizontal scroll, with its columns held too; phones, where rows stack as cards, are unchanged. To let columns resize as before, use stable_columns="0".
• New stable_height="1" shortcode option: the library also keeps its first-page height, so a search with few or no matches doesn’t shrink it and move the rest of the page up.

2.100.1

• Pro: a scanned PDF whose OCR attempt fails is now retried. If the OCR service timed out or was briefly unavailable, the document used to stay queued with no retry scheduled. Failed attempts now retry automatically with increasing gaps, a large scan has five minutes instead of two to finish, and the queue is spaced out so one background run isn’t handed the whole backlog at once.
• Pro: the Search Index tab now shows how many scanned PDFs are queued for OCR, and when OCR has stopped on a document it says why (for example, the service didn’t answer in time or didn’t accept the key). Pressing Send tries those documents again.

2.100.0

• Pro: scanned-PDF OCR is included with your license. Tick “Enable OCR” under Documents → Settings → Scanned OCR and it works; there is no OCR key to request or paste. Sites that already use a site key or their own OCR service keep working unchanged.

2.99.0

• Translations now work alongside a wordpress.org language pack. A language pack for your language used to replace FileDeck’s bundled translations, and because a pack covers only the free plugin, Pro and AI tier text would have gone back to English. The pack now keeps priority for the strings it translates, and the bundled translations supply the rest.
• The “Document Library” page FileDeck creates when it is first activated is titled in the site’s language when FileDeck has a translation for it.
• AI tier: the PDF watermark footer is translated. It is printed in plain ASCII, so accented letters become plain ones where the server can transliterate them; otherwise, and for languages such as Chinese, the footer stays in English.
• AI tier: the Smart Collections list shows when each collection was refreshed in the word order of your language (“vor 3 Stunden”, “il y a 3 heures”).
• Security and reliability improvements.

2.98.1

• The bundled translations now cover the “Document Category” and “Document Tag” names at the top of category and tag archive pages, the Documents menu’s own labels, and the Bricks document embed element’s settings and its prompt to pick a document.
• Pro: the “This document has been superseded” notice, the “Attached documents” heading, the empty document changelog message and the placeholder choice at the top of dropdown document fields on the front-end submission form now use the bundled translations. They stayed in English on translated sites before.
• AI tier: the read-and-confirm prompt with its button and confirmation messages, the “Related documents” heading and the empty collection message now use the bundled translations too.
• Pro and AI tier: when the admin language is one of the nine, the Document Fields, Acknowledgments, Smart Collections and AI Index screens and the Supersede, Attached documents and Read & confirm boxes are translated as well. Other admin screens stay in English.

2.98.0

• Fixed: on a fresh install the setup wizard opened before the opt-in question could appear, and while that question stayed unanswered the Documents menu held only the question and screens such as Upload Documents and Settings said “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page.” The question now comes first, answering it (Allow or Skip) opens the setup wizard, and FileDeck works normally while it is still unanswered.
• Uninstalling FileDeck moves the auto-created “Document Library” page to the trash when its title and content are still exactly as FileDeck created them, instead of leaving it published with a bare [filedeck] shortcode. It stays if it was edited, is the homepage, is in a menu or has child pages; on sites with the trash turned off it is set to draft.
• The deactivation form’s “The plugin didn’t work”, “The plugin broke my site” and “The plugin suddenly stopped working” answers now offer an optional box for what happened, plus a link to tell us directly.
• The setup wizard’s browser tab now reads “FileDeck Setup”.

2.97.0

• The library’s “Copy link” button and its “Copied!” confirmation, “Load more”, the Previous, Next and page-number buttons, and the search palette’s label and messages now use the site’s translation. They stayed in English on translated sites before.
• A translation template, languages/filedeck.pot, ships with the plugin, so Loco Translate, Poedit and similar tools list the plugin’s strings from the start instead of scanning its files (Loco skips large files by default, which left its list incomplete).
• Canadian French (fr_CA) sites now get the bundled French translation.
• FileDeck’s blocks now use a translation of their block editor labels when one is installed — a wordpress.org language pack or your own. The bundled translations cover the front end.
• The bundled translations now also cover the year filter and the Reference column.
• Pro: the preview window’s accessible name, the zip download’s error message, the embedded library’s frame title, the embed’s PDF loading message and the Bulk Add file picker are translatable too.

2.96.1

• Fixed: on a phone, a document the visitor cannot open showed a padlock and a dash on its card with no label beside them to say what they were. They now carry their Download and Preview labels, laid out like the rest of the card.
• Fixed: on a phone, a category name too long to sit beside its label ran off the edge of the document’s card. Categories that do not fit now move onto their own line, and a name longer than the whole card wraps inside its tag.

2.96.0

• The deactivation form’s most common answer, “Expected something else”, now offers an optional box for what you were hoping FileDeck would do, plus a link to tell us directly. “Great, but I need a specific feature” asks which feature, and “Didn’t work as expected” asks what it did instead. All optional.

2.95.0

• Year filter: an optional dropdown listing the years a library’s documents span, read from their dates — for minutes, newsletters and reports filed by year. show_year_filter="1" per library, or site-wide under Settings → Features; year="2025" pins a library to one year.
• Reference number: a new field on every document for a part number, document code or form number. Searchable in the library and in content search, and available as a sortable “Reference” column. Included in the Pro CSV import and export.
• Group by category: group_by="category" renders one library as a titled section per category (Folder order, then alphabetical; “Other” last) with one search box and one set of filters across all of them. Also on the Elementor widget and as a site-wide default.
• Fixed: the date-added filter compared the displayed date against the cutoff in libraries with an inline index, so it could let old documents through. Both date filters now compare machine dates.
• Fixed (Pro): a search the library matched by title, reference, category or tag was recorded as a content gap whenever the file text did not also match. The content-gaps report now records a gap only when nothing matched at all.

2.94.0

• Sample documents now show only to logged-in editors (badged “Sample”); visitors, subscribers and embedded libraries do not see them — in any layout, on a document’s own page, or in the REST listing.
• Trashing or deleting the last sample by hand now removes the empty sample categories, the same as the Remove button does.
• The starter “Document Library” page unpublishes itself (it becomes a draft and is not deleted) once another published page renders a library — only if it is still exactly as activation wrote it. A notice says which page superseded it, with one-click restore.
• Bundled translations of the library’s front end for Hungarian, Slovak, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese. A wordpress.org language pack still takes precedence.
• An empty folders or grid library now says “No documents found” instead of rendering an empty frame.
• The Document Categories screen notes how many categories hold no published documents, directly or in a sub-category.
• The licence screen calls the paid build “Pro version”.
• Sites five or more releases behind see a reminder on FileDeck’s own screens, with the release count and an update link.

Older releases are listed in changelog.txt.