Download Tracker —a new Drupal module to track file downloads

I wanted to track downloads of my applications, and no existing Drupal modules seemed to do exactly what I want to do, so I asked Antigravity to create one. I called it Download Tracker.

It has fine grained directory access, and can track public and private files served by Drupal.

It also keeps track of new vs old users using a cookie, and tracks different versions of the files:

This module was created by Antigravity, and here is its .md file:

Download Tracker

Download Tracker is a high-performance Drupal module that monitors administrator-configured server directories for file changes and software releases, tracks file reads and downloads, and automatically categorizes downloads into New Users, Version Updates, and Repeat Downloads.

🌟 Key Capabilities

📂 Watched Directory Management: Monitor any server folder (e.g., /sites/default/files/release, public://release, private://documents).
👥 Role-Based Download Control: Granular access permissions per directory (e.g. restrict to Authenticated users or leave open for Anonymous visitors).
🔐 Report Permissions in UI: Conveniently configure which roles can view analytics directly from the module settings page.
⚡ Intelligent Version Auditing: Automatically computes SHA-256 integrity hashes on disk to detect file updates and increment release versions (v1 $\to$ $\to$ v2 $\to$ $\to$ v3...).
📊 Visual Analytics Dashboard:
- High-level summary metrics cards (Total Files, Total Hits, New vs. Update vs. Repeat).
- Interactive data table with multi-column sorting across all metrics.
- Drill-down per-file audit trail with SHA-256 version history and chronological access logs (IP, User ID, Referrer, User-Agent).
- One-click CSV Export.
🛡️ Transparent Static Link Redirection: Direct links to static file paths (e.g. https://example.com/sites/default/files/release/app.exe) automatically redirect to the tracker endpoint so no download is missed.
🤖 Bot & Crawler Filtering: Automatically filters out search engine spiders (Google, Bing, Yandex, etc.) to keep your metrics clean.

🚀 Quick Start Guide

1. Installation

Via Composer (Recommended)

bash
composer require drupal/download_tracker

Enable Module via Drush

bash
drush pm:install download_tracker

(Alternatively, enable via the Drupal administration interface at Extend (/admin/modules).)

2. Configuration

Navigate to Configuration $\to$

$\to$ Media $\to$

$\to$ Download Tracker (/admin/config/media/download-tracker):

Report Access Permissions: Check the roles permitted to view reports and statistics.
Watched Directories: Configure your folders:
- Machine Key: e.g., release
- Label: e.g., Software Releases
- Directory Path: e.g., /sites/default/files/release or public://release
- Allowed Roles: Select roles allowed to download, or leave unchecked for open public access.
Click Save and Scan Directories Now.

TIP

Both standard paths with leading slashes (/sites/default/files/...), relative paths (sites/default/files/...), and Drupal stream wrappers (public://..., private://...) are automatically supported.

🔗 Clean Download URLs

You can share clean, tracked download links anywhere on your site, in documentation, or in emails:

https://example.com/download/ {d i r e c t o r y_k e y} / {f i l e n a m e}

https://example.com/download/

{

directory_key

}

/

{

filename

}

Example:

https://example.com/download/release/WhatBeeped_Setup_v1.0.exe

NOTE

Automatic Static URL Interception: If users or external sites access legacy direct links like https://example.com/sites/default/files/release/WhatBeeped_Setup_v1.0.exe, the module automatically intercepts the request, routes it through the tracker to count the hit, and streams the file immediately.

📈 Reports & Analytics

Access your analytics at Reports $\to$

$\to$ Download Tracker (/admin/reports/download-tracker):

Metric	Badge	Description
New Users	`New User`	First time this visitor has ever downloaded this specific file.
Version Updates	`Version Update`	Visitor previously had an older version (e.g. v1), and is now downloading the updated release (v2).
Repeat Downloads	`Repeat`	Visitor is re-downloading the same version they already downloaded previously.

Interactive Sorting: Click on any table header (Directory, Filename, Version, Size, Last Modified, Total Downloads, New Users, Updates, Repeats) to sort ascending or descending.
Drill-Down Audit: Click Details & History on any file to inspect its full SHA-256 version timeline and timestamped access logs.
Export Data: Click the Export CSV action button for reporting and offline analysis.

⚙️ Drush CLI Integration

Command	Alias	Description
`drush download-tracker:scan`	`drush dt-scan`	Manually triggers a scan across all watched directories to catalog new files or version bumps.

📋 Requirements & Compatibility

Drupal Core: ^10 || ^11 || ^12
PHP: ^8.1 || ^8.2 || ^8.3
Database: MySQL / MariaDB / PostgreSQL / SQLite

📄 License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (GPL-2.0-or-later).

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