But if people share that new URL, others who did not pay for it, can still access the file, right? As long as they have the URL they could still access the file.. So how do you set it up in such a way that if you try to access a file without being logged in and having paid for the specific file, you get a message saying 'access denied' ?
Using a separate folder to be accessed from links sent to clients after their purchase when they want to download the files is not only a way to secure these files, but it is also useful in other aspect: if you also provide to customers demos, and have a folder with demos only, the Search engine (plugin) would not access and provide its results in double, that is, listed the titles of all your files in double (and the demo title and the full track title). The search would be done inside the public_html folder only.
For a non-tech person. I. don't get it. How do you get to the location where you create a file? How do I get there? Step-by-step for people like me is helpful
If you have a webhosting, you got login data (a url, username and password) to connect via FTP (you need software like Filezilla to connect via FTP). Then you connect with the login data via FileZilla to your webhosting and you get a similar window like in the video, where you see many directories. Often the directory which could visited by the public in web is named "httpdocs" or "html". But here you need to create the directory "downloads" or "audiodownloads" and there you can upload via Filezilla the digital products you want to sell.
Great to know this and thank you very much for this guide. My only comment is it doesn't stop those people who already have it to send copies to other people. I guess that's the thing about Digital downloads though ;)
But at the same token, that's only a portion of people, not everyone, so this is still a clever work through. ;) I'm guilty of finding many PDFs when i want to and maybe now I can see the frustrating side of it too [for the creator] :)
There is a plugin that will stamp every page of the pdf with the users name and email address which makes it less interesting to share but you can never stop it.
@@WPTuts Is the same true for course content? There was someone I was following who said that his course conent was being abused for a whole year before he found out about it and it was a wordpress site. People were either downloading the course or taking it online without paying for it.
HI, Thanks for the video, however, I tested by buying my own ebook to test it, and I get this message after clicking the download button: "Unable to insert download log entry in database." Can you help? Thank you.
Thanks for the info mate. I built a whole website which took me 2 weeks and i designed it all but I cant figure out a way to make a simple downloadable click button let alone doing it bypassing my domain. any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Hi. I tried this solution. It's worked for me. I'm on siteground. I tryed to download files illegal y but I couldn't. So it worked. The issue is : what about the order receipt sended to the emails client and have a link to the downloads. That will work?.
Love the videos, thanks! I want to sell a course online (mp4 and pdf) and want to secure them, but most of all i don't wan the content to be shareable. would my best bet be learndash or is there a way to "protect" the downloads? thx!
Thanks for sharing this video...How can I grant access to downloadable products after payment in Woocommerce? I already clicked on the grant access box and the enable automatic download, but everytime I get a sale, the transaction is set to "On Hold" and I have to manually complete the transaction in order to grant access. My "Downloads require login" check box by the way is unchecked. Thanks in advance.
Hi. Great advice. Is is possible to protect a flipbook? When creating a flipbook (either by wordpress or externally) a link is provided. Can I use the cpanel to protect this link form being shared in the same way as a pdf for example?
Thank you for the video. It worked for me. But once they have the document, they can duplicate and sell it. How do I protect the document itself? Do I put copyright words everywhere like istock pix? Any ideas, anyone?
WooCommerce doesn't accept this kind of URL's! Anything entered on the File URL field that doesn't start with "..." or the "..." and you get the following error: "The downloadable file '/home/web-folder/downloads/file.ext' cannot be used as it does not exist on the server." I don't know if this was changed later and it was ok in 2017 but now in 2021 doesn't work, unfortunately ... Is there an update on this? ...
Question...how's this any different from just being able to copy and paste the url path within the public html folder on the server? If a customer has a link after purchase they can still share it with others if they want, correct?
They can share the link that they are supplied after a purchase, but you can set that to be limited to X downloads. Directly linking to the file URL that us created using the method in this video will NOT allow the file to be downloaded as it is above the websites root directory. Give it a try!
Hi, I have created a Downlodable Product, which is having more than 1000 downloadable files. I have to give these as separate files itself. But after adding 304 files, it is not taking any more files. It is showing to add files, after adding and updating it is coming back to the last 304 file. adding more than 304 downloadable files to a product and the 305th is simply not getting saved. So how can I add more downloadable files to single product
If a person is emailed a download link and gets their digital product. Why would the link work for the purchaser and not to their friends? (I am missing something big here :) I am wondering how this adds security.
i really don't see the need for this. I copied the URL and tried to access it like i was a Thief in incognito. But it showed me an error page that it was forbidden to access that page. So what i'm i missing here? are you saying that woo commerce is not that secure? because from this experiment, i think they are.
Thanks for this unfortunately I can't get it working and am in a similar situation tro Jeff Kyle getting an error message telling me the "File does not exist on the server" .I'd love for this to work. I am with Blue Host .Do you have any suggestions..???
Sir, I have one question that I have already have multiple PDF file and I need that everyone whoever try to views should submit their email before view or download. Will it possible in this plugin
Any plug-in for Woo that monitors IP addy access so that unauthorized links attempting to access the file from another country say are blocked? Or, is that something you'll only find on a dedicated product hosting service?
in filezilla you can click on your downloadable file (in the is case the audio.zip )and in the menu click "copy url to clipboard" then paste that as your download url, which will look something like ftp://"your ip address"/downloads/audio.zip. My issue is that it then asks for a username and password, which i am certainly not giving out to people on the internet, so not sure as to how this method protects anything?
Great tutorial, can you kindly let me know i how I restrict download limit to user? Like 20 downloads per day? Thanks if any body else knows kindly share, thanks again.
Thanks for the tutorial! I managed to upload files outside root directory but still when customer purchase the link can be shared and used by anyone? How can I prevent this from happening?
I'm not exactly sure myself, yet have you tried Googling it, or looking that up on UA-cam, or even contacting Amazon? I did a quick Google search. Have a look: forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=20505 Here's a UA-cam video about it: ua-cam.com/video/68R6VQOBf9M/v-deo.html Hope this helps. :)
Thank you very much for this video, BUT I tried to use your recommended method, but downloading always fail after about 300sec, although i configured my php.ini timeout to 7200sec, my shared hosting running php7.2, but same fail result of downloading after 5min, could you please help?
Hi, I want to keep all the digital downloadable products (suppose, test.zip) in a new folder (downloads) that will be outside of the public_html. Suppose, /home/wptuts/downloads/test.zip, then what will be the URL of the test.zip file that I can put in the woocommerce product? I am using shared hosting. If I upload all the files in the WP media, then undoubtedly my site size will be huge that I don't want. Hopefully, you can understand the situation and give me a great solution. Bye, Take Care, Mate.
🔴 While this method works on a live server, WooCommerce won't save the link on a local development WooCommerce install if the link is outside of the public directory (unless you have a solution for that). When I click save on my local WooCommerce install, I get this error: *The downloadable file /home/xxxxxxx/downloads/song.mp3 cannot be used as it does not exist on the server.* I have made sure that the server path is correct. It would be ideal if we could get all of the download links set on the local version while developing the site. Thanks so much for your help. 🙂
It shouldn't cause any issues, but if you find you run into problems, I'd suggest reaching out to your hosting company to check they don't have any restrictions in place.
hello i want to sell unique product downloadable For example: I want to sell barcode with excel file How can I sell different codes for each customer? Even if someone else buys the same product, they need to download a different code.
After months of running around in circles, this security solution finally worked for me, free of charge 😀😀👍👍👍 Thank you very much
Hi Not Abolished! How did you find your account name, the "123abc123" part for the file?
Just tried it, worked great, I also connected it with a data stamp so every pdf is stamped with their name and email :P
@@paolopanatta WaterWoo PDF Plugin
But if people share that new URL, others who did not pay for it, can still access the file, right? As long as they have the URL they could still access the file.. So how do you set it up in such a way that if you try to access a file without being logged in and having paid for the specific file, you get a message saying 'access denied' ?
Using a separate folder to be accessed from links sent to clients after their purchase when they want to download the files is not only a way to secure these files, but it is also useful in other aspect: if you also provide to customers demos, and have a folder with demos only, the Search engine (plugin) would not access and provide its results in double, that is, listed the titles of all your files in double (and the demo title and the full track title). The search would be done inside the public_html folder only.
For a non-tech person. I. don't get it. How do you get to the location where you create a file? How do I get there? Step-by-step for people like me is helpful
If you have a webhosting, you got login data (a url, username and password) to connect via FTP (you need software like Filezilla to connect via FTP). Then you connect with the login data via FileZilla to your webhosting and you get a similar window like in the video, where you see many directories. Often the directory which could visited by the public in web is named "httpdocs" or "html".
But here you need to create the directory "downloads" or "audiodownloads" and there you can upload via Filezilla the digital products you want to sell.
how to automate this with vendors who upload stuff to my site to sell?
Great to know this and thank you very much for this guide. My only comment is it doesn't stop those people who already have it to send copies to other people. I guess that's the thing about Digital downloads though ;)
Sadly that is true. Once someone has the file, it's open to sharing.
But at the same token, that's only a portion of people, not everyone, so this is still a clever work through. ;) I'm guilty of finding many PDFs when i want to and maybe now I can see the frustrating side of it too [for the creator] :)
There is a plugin that will stamp every page of the pdf with the users name and email address which makes it less interesting to share but you can never stop it.
@@WPTuts Is the same true for course content? There was someone I was following who said that his course conent was being abused for a whole year before he found out about it and it was a wordpress site. People were either downloading the course or taking it online without paying for it.
It worked! Thanks
Great tip and thank you, I've always known to do this when developing custom PHP apps, but good to know about digital files for woocommerce.
Can something like this be done but with Google drive?
Thank you so much! Very helpful!
HI, Thanks for the video, however, I tested by buying my own ebook to test it, and I get this message after clicking the download button: "Unable to insert download log entry in database." Can you help? Thank you.
Thank you so much for this tutorial. It's exactly what I was looking for. It works great!
Great to hear its helped out 😁
i am making a print template shop you are inspiring
Thanks for the info mate. I built a whole website which took me 2 weeks and i designed it all but I cant figure out a way to make a simple downloadable click button let alone doing it bypassing my domain. any suggestions will be much appreciated.
can I put my file in Google Drive?
Thanks a million - this was exactly what I was looking for.
Hi. I tried this solution. It's worked for me. I'm on siteground. I tryed to download files illegal y but I couldn't. So it worked. The issue is : what about the order receipt sended to the emails client and have a link to the downloads. That will work?.
Yes, the links in the email will work fine but are obfuscated for security. 👍
Love the videos, thanks! I want to sell a course online (mp4 and pdf) and want to secure them, but most of all i don't wan the content to be shareable. would my best bet be learndash or is there a way to "protect" the downloads? thx!
If the site is multivendor, how can this be achieved if the vendor is doing the upload?
I find it very useful, thank you very much!
Thank u! I have been looking for this info for quite some time! I really appreciate this video
Thanks for sharing this video...How can I grant access to downloadable products after payment in Woocommerce? I already clicked on the grant access box and the enable automatic download, but everytime I get a sale, the transaction is set to "On Hold" and I have to manually complete the transaction in order to grant access. My "Downloads require login" check box by the way is unchecked. Thanks in advance.
Hi. Great advice. Is is possible to protect a flipbook? When creating a flipbook (either by wordpress or externally) a link is provided. Can I use the cpanel to protect this link form being shared in the same way as a pdf for example?
Thank you for the video. It worked for me. But once they have the document, they can duplicate and sell it. How do I protect the document itself? Do I put copyright words everywhere like istock pix? Any ideas, anyone?
WooCommerce doesn't accept this kind of URL's! Anything entered on the File URL field that doesn't start with "..." or the "..." and you get the following error:
"The downloadable file '/home/web-folder/downloads/file.ext' cannot be used as it does not exist on the server."
I don't know if this was changed later and it was ok in 2017 but now in 2021 doesn't work, unfortunately ... Is there an update on this? ...
Same issue, would like to see a solution
Question...how's this any different from just being able to copy and paste the url path within the public html folder on the server? If a customer has a link after purchase they can still share it with others if they want, correct?
They can share the link that they are supplied after a purchase, but you can set that to be limited to X downloads. Directly linking to the file URL that us created using the method in this video will NOT allow the file to be downloaded as it is above the websites root directory.
Give it a try!
Hi, I have created a Downlodable Product, which is having more than 1000 downloadable files. I have to give these as separate files itself. But after adding 304 files, it is not taking any more files. It is showing to add files, after adding and updating it is coming back to the last 304 file. adding more than 304 downloadable files to a product and the 305th is simply not getting saved. So how can I add more downloadable files to single product
If a person is emailed a download link and gets their digital product. Why would the link work for the purchaser and not to their friends? (I am missing something big here :) I am wondering how this adds security.
i really don't see the need for this. I copied the URL and tried to access it like i was a Thief in incognito. But it showed me an error page that it was forbidden to access that page. So what i'm i missing here? are you saying that woo commerce is not that secure? because from this experiment, i think they are.
Thanks for this unfortunately I can't get it working and am in a similar situation tro Jeff Kyle getting an error message telling me the "File does not exist on the server" .I'd love for this to work. I am with Blue Host .Do you have any suggestions..???
It may be worth checking with your hosting company to ensure that they don't block this method or if there any restrictions in place.
Really helpful.
Thank you. Do you have any tips to make sure people cannot copy from a PDF after being downloaded?
Or maybe to stop them from sharing?
Hi, i have the same query. did u find a solution?
@@TUI_GOKU697 same query, please help with any solution
Same query, any hints
Sir,
I have one question that I have already have multiple PDF file and I need that everyone whoever try to views should submit their email before view or download. Will it possible in this plugin
How to Set download limit for Member like member can only download 10 files par day?
Any plug-in for Woo that monitors IP addy access so that unauthorized links attempting to access the file from another country say are blocked? Or, is that something you'll only find on a dedicated product hosting service?
do your ftp account login details not get comprised of you are putting it into a link like this?
No, as no ftp details are displayed when you use this method.
in filezilla you can click on your downloadable file (in the is case the audio.zip )and in the menu click "copy url to clipboard" then paste that as your download url, which will look something like
ftp://"your ip address"/downloads/audio.zip.
My issue is that it then asks for a username and password, which i am certainly not giving out to people on the internet, so not sure as to how this method protects anything?
@@fuzzripear that's not how this method was demonstrated in the video. You use the direct link to the above root folder, no ftp:// link, etc.
When I press "update" the file path information disappears. Why is that?
Same happened to me always
Great tutorial, can you kindly let me know i how I restrict download limit to user? Like 20 downloads per day? Thanks if any body else knows kindly share, thanks again.
Thanks for the tutorial! I managed to upload files outside root directory but still when customer purchase the link can be shared and used by anyone? How can I prevent this from happening?
Great content. Earned a sub here!
Thank you very much - I'll be trying this out!
I'll be using Amazon S3 to store my digital downloads - how to protect those files?
I'm not exactly sure myself, yet have you tried Googling it, or looking that up on UA-cam, or even contacting Amazon?
I did a quick Google search. Have a look: forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=20505
Here's a UA-cam video about it: ua-cam.com/video/68R6VQOBf9M/v-deo.html
Hope this helps. :)
Thank you very much. It worked perfectly. Best regards.
Thank you very much for this video, BUT I tried to use your recommended method, but downloading always fail after about 300sec, although i configured my php.ini timeout to 7200sec, my shared hosting running php7.2, but same fail result of downloading after 5min, could you please help?
What if your website is hosted on wordpress itself not an external host?
Hi, I want to keep all the digital downloadable products (suppose, test.zip) in a new folder (downloads) that will be outside of the public_html. Suppose, /home/wptuts/downloads/test.zip, then what will be the URL of the test.zip file that I can put in the woocommerce product?
I am using shared hosting. If I upload all the files in the WP media, then undoubtedly my site size will be huge that I don't want. Hopefully, you can understand the situation and give me a great solution.
Bye, Take Care, Mate.
WP/WooCommerce has seemed to address this issue. It doesn't show the public link anymore. But thanks anyway!
So with these methods, I can sell non-downloadable video courses?
Thank you!! It worked nicely! :)
hello can you help , i tried adding the file but woocommerce give me an as "file not found on the server"
🔴 While this method works on a live server, WooCommerce won't save the link on a local development WooCommerce install if the link is outside of the public directory (unless you have a solution for that). When I click save on my local WooCommerce install, I get this error: *The downloadable file /home/xxxxxxx/downloads/song.mp3 cannot be used as it does not exist on the server.* I have made sure that the server path is correct. It would be ideal if we could get all of the download links set on the local version while developing the site. Thanks so much for your help. 🙂
Hello! First, thanks for this video :) Have a little question. Is there any chance that this method may cause some issues with files downloading?
It shouldn't cause any issues, but if you find you run into problems, I'd suggest reaching out to your hosting company to check they don't have any restrictions in place.
Alright, thanks for the advice, I'll try to figure out what's going on with my hosting provider :) cheers!
Pls I use Bluehost, is it going to work?
I'm afraid I've never used Blue host, so could say. 🤔
Spot on! Another thumbs up from me...
Thanks Paul, glad you found the tutorial useful 😃
Subscribed several times and the subscribe is red again - like I did not. Anyone had this issue before?
hello i want to sell unique product downloadable
For example: I want to sell barcode with excel file
How can I sell different codes for each customer?
Even if someone else buys the same product, they need to download a different code.
it bypasses the domain and goes straight to the server how the hell is that more secure ?
Because the link is not publicly accessible. Have you actually tried the method used here?
@@WPTuts no I almost did tho I'm still trying to find a good secure way may try this and make you know
noooo dont doo thattt your are expose to RCE