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How to Protect WordPress Media Library Files?

It is a matter of fact that everyone wishes to keep his files and folders safe and secured. It can however seem to be very easy but in reality it takes a great deal of effort keep everything safe and restrict the access of any unauthorized user. Similarly, media files on a website running on WordPress play a significant role, any misuse of the media files can cause a big problem, and the website will move in the direction of being crashed. An access to the media library is very easy and anyone can directly access the media library files typing the URL which points to the content uploads folder. In most of the websites, the images and media files are made easily accessible to visitors whereas in some the media files are not available. In this article, you will come across a number of ways and WordPress customization options by which you can keep all your data safe and protect any unauthorized access into your WordPress media library.

Ways to restrict access to the media library:

Check out some of the most trusted and used means of protecting website access into the media library:

  • Using an upstream plugin that protects your media library

There are a number of plugins available in the WordPress repository that helps users to keep their data safe. Making use of a protection plugin will restrict any user browsing around the contents of the media library by hiding the folder. The plugins makes use an index.php file on the root of the content directory or makes a setting in the .htcacess file which trigger an error 403 forbidden error message. In order to setup this plugin, you would need to visit the WordPress repository from the plugin window and the download the plugin. After downloading the plugin, you need to install the same and activate it. Once you have activated the plugin, you can move ahead to set up the same and wait for the key points to be triggered to take action and display results as you have keyed in. 

  • Using code to restrict access

If you don’t wish to install a plugin from any third party to take charge and protect your website media library then it would be better to write down some lines of code that prevents any kind of direct access to the media files stored on your WordPress. It is a matter of fact that this process will certainly need a bit of effort and it is not as easy as integrating a plugin. You would need to spend some time writing the code and make it work. Before you start making changes to the live website, it is at all times advised to take a fresh backup of your website so that you can restore the backup if anything goes wrong. This step will protect all sorts of data present on your website and you will not have to start making your website from scratch. For carrying out this crusade, there are a number of ways to approach like using the FTP programs or making use of any built in editors for WordPress. It would be better to lay a professional hand on your website to make these changes. You can hire a WordPress developer with years of experience. 

  • Making use of frontier restrict media plugin

Frontier restrict media plugin is yet another plugin that can be used on your website built on WordPress to make sure that your media library files are not hacked by any unauthorized users. This is a very simple plugin and it does not need any setting up. You just need to install the plugin from WordPress repository and then activate it. You need to keep this plugin updated from time to time as outdated plugins present on a WordPress website will carry a number of problems with them and get your website crash load. 

Hopefully, this article must be helpful for you and it must have made you aware of various ways in which you can take the charge of your website and protect all your files and media library from any unauthorized access. If you feel that you are not much aware of WordPress development and WordPress customization, then it would be better to hire a WordPress developer to help you with protecting all your media library files. If you wish to continue with plugins then you would not need to spend a lot of time on this job and if you wish to continue with writing code then you would need to get in touch with qualified professional who has got years of experience. 

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