Disabling media generation for specific files

The CMS Questions
2

Are you making download links available for restricted files with $file->url()? Files get copied to the media folder only when the URL returned by the url() method is accessed in the browser.

I suggest you to create a custom file method to generate a URL for restricted files instead of using the default $file->url(). Then point those files to a custom route from where you could handle the authorization logic or token validation. Here is a simple example:

<?php // site/config/config.php

return [
  'routes' => [
    [
      'pattern' => 'restricted/(:any)',
      'action'  => function ($hash) {
        // validate request

        if ($file = site()->index()->files()->findBy('hash', $hash)) {
          return Response::download($file->root(), 'new-filename.pdf');
        }

        return site()->errorPage();
      }
    ],
  ],
];
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