File access and management limitation

WP File download has many tools to limit file visibility and management for the admin side. First, we need to make a distinction between:

• File visibility, or who is able to view and download the files on the public side
• File management, or who is able to add, remove and edit files and categories

File access and visibility

With WP File Download you can limit the visibility of categories of files by WordPress user group. Open a category of files and make it private by selecting a user group or a single user. Then, click on the Save Settings button, and you're done.

You can also limit the file visibility for a single file for a few users so that only those selected will be able to view the file.

In order to use this feature, you should enable the Single user restriction option from the Configuration > Main Setting > Admin tab.

Similarly, you can set the visibility for a category for single users. That means that when the Visibility option is set Private, only a particular user can view the category on the frontend.

For example, you can set the "Manager" user to view the "Test" category on the frontend.

From now on, the Download files and Preview files option are available in each user role, you can restrict users to download or preview on the frontend by roles. 

For example: In this case of Editor role, once the options are enabled, users who are granted an Editor role can download and preview files. It would be one of them depending on your settings.

File management setup by WordPress user role

File management in WP File Download is defined by WordPress user roles. You can choose those roles that can execute some specific actions. All the users having the selected user roles will have the same authorizations regarding file management.

To configure the access use the WP File Download > Configuration > File Access > User Roles tab:

After the user is logged in, they will inherit their group privilege to manage files.

Manage personal user file repository

WP File Download allows you to let your WordPress users manage their own files' repository because you can define, as an admin, who owns a category of files.

The first step is to set up the user's role to only "Edit own category". Disable the "Edit category" option because users should not be able to edit all existing categories in this example, but only their own categories. The other privileges are not mandatory, depending on what you want to allow.

Then you can create a file category for your users, or if "Create category" is enabled in their user role, they will be able to do that themselves. Then, from the file category you've created, you can define who owns the category and therefore who will be able to edit it.

You can assign one user owner per category.

Furthermore, a user can give permission for a category or a file if the "Edit permissions settings" option is enabled in their user role. That means that they can select a user for a category or multiple users for a file, like in the previous step.

Download limitation for roles

In order to limit time to download and duration time for users to download files, you should go to WP File download configuration > File access > Download limit. Then enable Limit the download option.

From here, there are 2 options: Download limit and Time limit for every Role on the site. The Download limit should be a number, the Time limit option can be set by Hour, Day,...

• Download limit: If filled, this will limit the number of download for each file per user in this user group
• Time limit: If filled, this will limit the delay during which the files are available per user in this user group

Finally, do not forget to click on Save button.

Video of WordPress file download access: