How to Password Protect Downloads in WordPress

One of the main issues you might face by offering downloadable content through your WordPress website is managing user access to files. You need a simple tool that lets you password protect downloads and documents so you can easily restrict access to certain users.

Having the option to password protect downloads means that you can share resources with users in a secure way and it also gives you better control over file downloads.

In this post, we’ll take you through a step-by-step tutorial to help you password protect your downloads. But before we jump into the tutorial, let’s quickly take a look at some of the different types of password-protection methods you can use to restrict access to files and documents in WordPress.

Password protect downloads, files and documents

Adding password protection to WordPress means that your site’s users will be able to access the files and documents by entering the correct password. Two of the most popular password protection methods in WordPress are simple password protection and multiple password protection.

Simple password protection is when you restrict user access to your files and documents by creating a single password for all users. It’s the simplest method for restricting access to files in WordPress.

You should use simple password protection if you’re looking for an easy way to restrict access to content and/or you only have a few users you’d like to grant access to.

For instance, if you’re a graphic artist or a freelancer, you may need to grant certain clients access to your digital portfolio to give them an idea of your past work. You can also use simple password protection to protect your files if you’d like to give users access to member’s only content on your membership site.

Multiple password protection, or protecting content with multiple passwords, is great for when you want to give different types of users access to downloadable content.

This method of protection gives a different password to each user (or types of users) while making it easy for you to manage and revoke access to site content from the back-end.

This is particularly useful when you want to grant access to a large, segmented list of contacts or if you want to make downloadable documents available to different types of customers.

There are other ways to restrict access to content in WordPress including CAPTCHA, Google ReCAPTCHA, user role protection, and unlock via link. For more information, be sure to check out our post on the 6 Different Ways to Restrict Content in WordPress.

How to password protect downloads, files, and documents in WordPress

Here, we’ll show you how to password protect downloads, files, and documents. For this tutorial, you’ll need your WordPress website and some downloadable files. You’ll also need to get the Filr plugin and the Passster plugin.

Step #1: Create a new list for password-protected downloadable files using Filr

Start by creating a new list for your downloadable files and documents. This will enable you to keep all of the downloadable files organized in the back-end.

For instance, if you want to add more resources to a file, update it, or revoke access to it entirely, you’ll know exactly which list it’s located in.

Go to Files > Lists from the WordPress dashboard, give your list a name, and provide a brief description. After that’s done, click the Add New List button to continue.

The new list will automatically be added to the right-hand side of the page along with a shortcode. We’ll use this shortcode in Step #3 to display the document library on the front-end of your WordPress site so you should copy it to your clipboard.

Step #2: Upload files and documents to WordPress

Filr makes it incredibly easy to create a document library in WordPress, enabling you to securely add files in any format straight to your website. It comes with encryption and protection features out of the box which ensures that unauthorized people can’t download files.

Using Filr, you can:

• Upload one or more documents directly to a secure folder on your WordPress site
• Group documents by lists to make it easier to manage files on the back-end
• Expire files based on the number of downloads or a specific date
• Restrict direct access to files using filename encryption

Go to Files > Add New and give a name to your files. Then, use the File Upload meta box to upload the files you’d like to make accessible to your site’s users.

Categorize it under the list you created in Step #1 using the Lists meta box located on the right-hand side of the page.

Use the Expire by date and Expire by downloads options to control the expiry of downloadable files.

Click the Publish button to continue.

Pro tip: You can enable filename encryption by toggling the Encrypt Filename option on.

Step #3: Add the document library to a page

In this step, we’ll display the document library on the front-end of your website. Start by creating a new page by navigating to Pages > Add New. Name the page and copy-paste the shortcode from Step #1 to a new shortcode block in the text editor.

Press the Publish… button to continue. A document library will automatically be created on the front-end of your website and it should look something like this:

Your website users will be able to download files by clicking the button(s) in the Files column.

Pro tip: You can use the Filr plugin to customize the appearance of your document library by going to Files > Settings from the WordPress dashboard and clicking the Shortcode tab.

Step #4: Password-protected downloads using Passster

A simple way to manage access to downloadable files is by using the Passster plugin. You can use it to enable single or multiple password protection for downloadable files and documents.

Start by logging into your WordPress admin panel and going to Plugins > Add New. From here, search for Passster and install and activate the Passster – Password Protection plugin on your site.

Then navigate to the page where you added the FILR shortcode and open the metabox “Passster (Page Protection):

Choose “password” within the “Protection Type” setting and adding your desired password in the field which appears below. Done!

If you want to use multiple passwords or entire password lists (which can contain thousands of passwords) you may want to check out the pro version of Passster here.

Conclusion

Password protect downloads and documents become much easier with Filr and Passster. It’s a great way to restrict user access to downloadable files without compromising on user experience.

To recap:

• Single password protection involves creating a single password for all users. It offers an easy way to restrict access to content, especially when you’re looking to grant access to a handful of people only.
• Multiple password protection can help you grant different users (or types of users) access to files and documents. It also makes it easier to manage and revoke access to downloadable resources.

Ready to password protect downloads? Get Filr and Passster today!