Pro Features Tour

Goal: understand every Pro and Agency feature, with a one-line answer to “when would I use this?”

You just activated your license. This page is a tour of everything that just unlocked. Skim it once, bookmark it, come back when a use case shows up.

Unlimited protected files

Use it when: you ever wanted to protect a third PDF.

The free plugin caps you at 2 protected files. Pro removes the cap entirely. Upload as many as you want in Media Guard → File Manager.

Extended file types

Use it when: you sell or share anything besides PDFs.

Free supports PDF only. Pro adds: EPUB, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, MP4, MP3, WAV, OGG, WEBM, MOV, ZIP, RAR, 7Z, and most common image formats. The shortcode usage is identical — just point file= at the new file:

[mediaguard file="course-module-1.mp4" roles="subscriber" embed="yes"]

CSS watermarks (Pro) / Dynamic watermarks (Agency)

Use it when: you want to discourage screenshots or screen-recording of protected viewers.

Pro adds a translucent CSS watermark overlaid on viewed PDFs and videos — useful for “do not redistribute” notices.

Agency adds dynamic tokens that get baked into the watermark per viewer: their email, username, and the current date. If a screenshot leaks, the watermark identifies who leaked it.

Configure under Media Guard → Settings → Watermarks.

The shortcode

Use it when: you want a “My Library” page that shows each user only the files they have access to.

Drop this on any page (e.g. My Account → My Library):

[mediaguard_library]

Logged-in users see a grid of every file they can access — based on their roles, group memberships, and WooCommerce purchases. No setup beyond placing the shortcode. The grid is responsive and inherits your theme’s styling.

Groups

Use it when: WordPress roles are too coarse. Example: you have 100 Subscribers, but only 30 paid for the Premium Templates bundle.

Create a group (Media Guard → Groups → Add New), name it Premium Templates, assign those 30 users. Then gate the files by group instead of role:

[mediaguard file="premium-template.docx" groups="premium-templates"]

You can mix and match: roles="subscriber" groups="premium-templates" means user must have the role and be in the group.

Users management

Use it when: you need to add a user to a group, remove someone, or see a user’s full access at a glance.

Go to Media Guard → Users. Search any WordPress user, see their groups, add/remove with one click, and view their recent file access history.

Access Log

Use it when: someone says “the link didn’t work” or you want to know who’s actually using what.

Media Guard → Access Log shows every file open / download attempt with the user, file, timestamp, IP address, and result (granted / denied / not-logged-in). Filter by user, by file, by date range. Export to CSV for compliance audits.

NGINX X-Accel-Redirect (high-performance streaming)

Use it when: you’re serving large files (especially video) and you don’t want PHP to be the bottleneck.

If your server runs NGINX, Pro automatically hands large file delivery off to NGINX directly using the X-Accel-Redirect header. PHP only runs the access check; NGINX streams the bytes. The result: 10–100× faster downloads of large files and far less PHP memory use.

No configuration needed — Pro detects NGINX and enables this automatically. Apache hosts get the standard PHP streaming path (still secure, just slower for huge files).

White-label branding (Agency only)

Use it when: you’re a consultancy installing this on client sites and you don’t want “PaulsPerfectPC” or “Media Guard” branding visible in the admin.

Go to Media Guard → Settings → White Label and replace the plugin name, logo, and admin menu icon with your own brand. Settings persist per-site, so each client install can be branded differently.

1 year of priority email support & auto-updates

Use it when: you ever have a question or want to be sure you’re running the latest secure version.

Reply to your order email — that lands in priority support. Updates arrive in Plugins → Updates like any WP.org plugin, but pulled directly from wpmediaguard.com (no public listing). WordPress checks for updates roughly every 12 hours; click Check Again to force a check.

What’s next?

• How Media Guard Access Works — the three gates (roles, groups, purchases) and how they combine.
• Sell Protected Files with WooCommerce — pair Pro with WooCommerce so paying customers automatically get file access.
• Troubleshooting — what to check when a file won’t load for the right person.