Document Library Pro is getting a major upgrade: New Essentials and Advanced plans

We’re excited to share some big news: Document Library Pro is being restructured into two versions — Essentials and Advanced. This update is designed to give you more flexibility by choosing the version that best suits your needs, whether you’re managing a simple document library or need advanced access control features.

Why we’re making this change

Until now, Document Library Pro was available either as a single plugin, or bundled with our Password Protected Categories plugin (PPC) for access control. This setup caused two major problems for our customers:

We’re replacing this with a cleaner solution: one plugin, one install, and two plan levels designed specifically to suit different use cases 🌟

What’s included in each version?

Essentials

Essentials is perfect for small businesses, charities and other organizations who need to display and manage documents in a searchable library, without advanced access restrictions or corporate-level features. It includes everything you currently love about Document Library Pro, with a few exceptions:

• No drag-and-drop or CSV import (Essentials will include a simplified import prompt, and you can still convert media files to documents)
• No automatic document expiry.
• No version control.
• No access control (restricting documents by user, role, password, etc.).

Customers using Essentials will see helpful prompts showing how to unlock advanced features by upgrading.

Advanced

Advanced is designed for larger organizations who use Document Library Pro to display their resources on their WordPress site. It includes everything in Essentials, plus powerful extras to scale your document libraries and take them to the next level:

• Import documents via drag-and-drop or CSV.
• Set document expiry dates.
• Enable version control to track and store previous versions.
• Protect documents by user, role, or password. Either do this by restricting the entire document library or restrict documents by category or individually.
• Provide document library login forms.
• Choose where users are redirected after logging into the document library.
• Control which user roles can manage and edit documents.
• Option to only allow the user who created a document to view and edit that document.

If you currently use Document Library Pro with the Password Protected Categories plugin, you’ll now have access to these features directly in the Advanced plan — no need for a second plugin.

What does this mean for existing customers?

If you already have a license for Document Library Pro, there’s nothing you need to do. You’ll automatically be upgraded to the new Advanced version at no extra cost. Simply update in the WordPress Dashboard in the usual way.

This ensures that you’ll keep all the features you currently use — plus get the improved access control tools — in one unified plugin.

Existing Document Library Pro + Password Protected Categories users

If you're already using the two-plugin bundle, then your protected categories will automatically be migrated to the new category protection in Document Library Pro Advanced. You can then safely delete Password Protected Categories, or keep using it if you're also using it for other things.

We’re here to help

If you have any questions about the new Essentials and Advanced plans, feel free to contact our support team. We’re happy to help you choose the right version for your needs.