WebFilesDesk

A lightweight, self-hosted web file manager built with PHP 8.5+. Browse, preview, upload, download, rename and delete files directly from your browser — no database required.

Designed to work out of the box on Windows Server + IIS as well as Windows Server + nginx and Linux + nginx / Apache.

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Screenshots

File listing	Image viewer	Audio player

PDF viewer	Code viewer	Dark theme

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Features

• File browsing — sorting, pagination, search, breadcrumb navigation
• File previews — PDF, images (gallery with navigation), video, audio, plain text, CSV, source code with syntax highlighting
• Audio player — playlist mode with visualizer, repeat, shuffle
• File operations — upload (drag & drop), rename, delete, download, multi-select download as ZIP
• Dark / light theme — auto-saved per browser
• Localization — 21 languages, JSON-based, easy to extend
• No database — single configuration file (conf.ini)
• IIS-ready — includes web.config, tested on Windows Server 2025 + IIS 10
• Works on — Windows Server + IIS, Linux + nginx / Apache

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Why WebFilesDesk on IIS?

Most PHP file managers are built and tested exclusively on Linux + Apache/nginx. WebFilesDesk is different — it was developed and runs in production on Windows Server 2025 + IIS 10, so you get:

• ✅ Correct path handling on Windows (\ vs /)
• ✅ Correct encoding detection for Windows-1251 / CP866 files
• ✅ web.config included and ready to use
• ✅ IIS-specific hints in error messages (which service to restart, etc.)
• ✅ No dependency on Linux-only shell commands

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Quick Start — 3 Steps

No build tools, no npm, no Docker. Just PHP.

Step 1 — Download and install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/CaPusto/WebFilesDesk.git
cd WebFilesDesk
composer require scrivo/highlight.php

Step 2 — Configure

Run this command for linux system

cp config/conf.ini.example config/conf.ini

or this command for windows system

copy config\conf.ini.examle config\conf.ini

Edit config/conf.ini — set the path to your files and the language:

[general]
base_dir = C:/Work/files        ; or /var/www/files on Linux
title    = My Files
language = en

Step 3 — Open in browser

Point your web server to the project folder and open it. That's it.

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Requirements

• PHP 8.5+
• Extensions: mbstring, fileinfo, iconv, zip, gd
• Web server: IIS 10+, nginx, or Apache
• Composer (for syntax highlighting via scrivo/highlight.php)

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Web Server Setup

IIS (Windows Server)

1. Copy the project to your IIS site root (e.g. C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WebFilesDesk)
2. The included web.config handles URL routing automatically — no extra configuration needed
3. In php.ini, set upload limits to match max_upload_size in conf.ini:

upload_max_filesize = 100M
post_max_size       = 100M

4. In nginx.conf or IIS request filtering, set maxAllowedContentLength accordingly
5. Restart IIS and PHP

nginx

client_max_body_size 100M;

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

Apache

The included .htaccess handles rewrites automatically.

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Configuration Reference

All settings are in config/conf.ini.

[general]

Key	Default	Description
base_dir	(required)	Absolute path to the root directory to browse
title	File Manager	Page title shown in the header
language	en	UI language code (see supported languages below)
date_format	d-m-Y H:i	Date format for file modification times (PHP date format)
background	(empty)	Path to a background image relative to project root

[options]

Key	Default	Description
enable_search	true	Enable file search
enable_download	true	Allow file downloads
enable_upload	false	Allow file uploads
enable_delete	false	Allow file deletion
max_upload_size	0	Maximum upload size, e.g. 10MB, 1GB. 0 = no limit
debug	false	Show PHP errors and config warnings

[exclude]

Key	Default	Description
patterns	(empty)	Comma-separated list of file/folder name patterns to hide, e.g. *.exe, .git, Thumbs.db

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Localization

The UI language is set via language in conf.ini. Language files are in includes/lang/.

Supported languages (21)

Code	Language	Code	Language	Code	Language
en	English	ru	Russian	de	German
fr	French	es	Spanish	it	Italian
pl	Polish	pt	Portuguese	nl	Dutch
da	Danish	no	Norwegian	sv	Swedish
fi	Finnish	cs	Czech	sk	Slovak
hu	Hungarian	ro	Romanian	uk	Ukrainian
be	Belarusian	el	Greek	tr	Turkish

Adding a new language

1. Copy includes/lang/en.json to includes/lang/xx.json
2. Translate all values — do not change the keys
3. Set language = xx in conf.ini

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Project Structure

WebFilesDesk/
├── config/
│   └── conf.ini              # Configuration file
├── includes/
│   ├── config.php            # Config loader
│   ├── functions.php         # Preview functions
│   ├── directory.php         # Directory listing
│   ├── download.php          # File download handler
│   ├── lang.php              # Localization loader
│   ├── styles.css            # Main stylesheet
│   └── lang/
│       ├── en.json           # English strings
│       └── ru.json           # Russian strings (+ 19 more)
├── templates/
│   ├── header.php
│   ├── footer.php
│   ├── listing.php
│   ├── messages.php
│   ├── edit_name.php
│   ├── preview_pdf.php
│   ├── preview_txt.php
│   ├── preview_csv.php
│   ├── preview_img.php
│   ├── preview_video.php
│   ├── preview_code.php
│   ├── preview_audio_single.php
│   └── audio_player.php
├── vendor/                   # Composer dependencies
├── bootstrap/                # Bootstrap CSS/JS (local)
├── fontawesome/              # Font Awesome (local)
├── web.config                # IIS configuration
└── index.php                 # Entry point

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Third-party Libraries

Library	Version	License	Purpose
Bootstrap	5.x	MIT	UI framework
Font Awesome	6.x	Free	Icons
scrivo/highlight.php	latest	BSD-3	Syntax highlighting

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💼 Professional Edition (Paid)

The open-source version of WebFilesDesk covers the core file browsing and preview functionality. If your project requires enterprise-grade features, a Professional Edition is available on a paid basis:

• 🔐 Full authentication system — login page, session management, password hashing
• 👥 User management — add, edit, and remove users via admin panel
• 🛡️ Role-based access control — assign per-user or per-group permissions for read, upload, rename, delete, and download
• 📋 Audit log — detailed session-level logging of all file operations: downloads, uploads, renames, deletions, folder creation
• ⚙️ Admin panel — manage users, roles, permissions, and audit logs through a web UI
• 📁 Per-folder permissions — restrict access to specific directories per user or group

To inquire about the Professional Edition, please open an issue or contact via the email in the profile.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch: git checkout -b feature/my-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m 'Add my feature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/my-feature
5. Open a Pull Request