Downloads, previews and uploads

Users download files by clicking Download in the portal. The file travels from Google to your server and then to the user, so no Google link is ever shown. Uploading from the portal is not available: the plugin only reads from Drive.

Downloads

• Every file has a Download action. The file keeps its original name.
• The master switch Downloads in Appearance and behaviour > What visitors can do turns downloads on or off for the whole portal. When it is off, nobody can download.
• The download is streamed in small pieces, so large files do not exhaust PHP memory. They do use your hosting bandwidth.

Largest file that can be downloaded

In Largest file that can be downloaded you set a limit in MB (default 512, maximum 5120). Files above it are blocked with a message asking the user to contact the site administrator. 0 removes the limit. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are never blocked by this limit, because their size is not known in advance.

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

These files have no downloadable content as they are, so the plugin converts them on the fly:

Google file	Download as	Preview as
Google Docs	Word (.docx)	PDF
Google Sheets	Excel (.xlsx)	PDF
Google Slides	PowerPoint (.pptx)	PDF
Google Drawings	PNG image	PDF

Previews and thumbnails (Pro)

With Previews and thumbnails switched on, users can open images and PDFs in a preview window (with Open in a new tab), and images show small thumbnails made by Google. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are previewed as PDF.

• Only JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF and PDF are shown inside the browser. Every other type, including SVG and HTML files, is always downloaded as a file, for security.

View only folders (Pro)

In Choose who sees which folder, each rule has a Downloads switch. Turn it off and click Save settings to make that folder view only:

• The Download action disappears for that folder.
• Images are shown only as reduced versions made by Google, never the original.
• PDF and document previews are not offered, because a full preview can be saved like a download. Users see The full preview of this document requires download permission.

This greatly reduces access to the original files, but it is not absolute protection: anyone who can see a document on screen can photograph it.

In the free version the per-rule switch is locked and downloads are always allowed (unless the master switch is off).

Uploads

Google Drive Portal does not let users upload files from the website, and it never changes anything in your Drive. To publish a new document, add it to the shared folder in Google Drive (from the Drive website, the Drive app or Google Drive for desktop). It appears in the portal automatically after the cache expires (5 minutes by default), or immediately when the user clicks Refresh.

If files do not open but folders do

Files are delivered through wp-admin/admin-post.php. If a security plugin blocks /wp-admin/ for non-administrators, browsing works but files do not open. Add an exception for admin-post.php in that plugin.