Installation

Requirements

• WordPress 6.5 or higher
• PHP 8.1 or higher
• A modern browser for the admin (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)

Install from WordPress.org

1. Go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin.
2. Search for “MediaShield”.
3. Click Install Now, then Activate.

That’s it. After activation, MediaShield redirects you to the setup wizard.

Manual upload

1. Download the mediashield ZIP from WordPress.org or your account.
2. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now.
4. Click Activate Plugin.

Alternatively, unzip the file and upload the mediashield folder to /wp-content/plugins/ via FTP, then activate from Plugins.

What happens on activation

When MediaShield activates, it:

• Creates 6 database tables for sessions, milestones, tags, and playlists
• Seeds default settings
• Adds a single top-level MediaShield menu to the admin sidebar
• Gives the Administrator role the upload_mediashield capability
• Redirects to the setup wizard on first activation

The 6 tables are created automatically. You don’t need to manage them - they’re removed when you delete the plugin.

After installation

MediaShield adds one item to the WordPress admin sidebar. Opening it loads a single-page admin app whose own sidebar has seven sections:

Section	Purpose
Dashboard	Overview stats and activity chart
Videos	Your video library
Playlists	Grouped video sequences
Viewers	Per-user watch progress
Tags	Tag dictionary for organising videos
Milestones	Log of milestones viewers have reached
Settings	All plugin configuration

Videos and playlists are WordPress custom post types, but they have no menu items of their own. You reach their edit screens from the Videos and Playlists sections.

The setup wizard launches automatically on first activation. Follow the Setup Wizard guide to complete initial configuration.

Check Site Health if you host video files yourself

If you plan to upload video files to your own server, open Tools > Site Health after installing. MediaShield adds a check that requests one of your own stored video files over HTTP and reports what the server actually did. On Apache the bundled .htaccess rule blocks that request; on nginx it does not, and the check gives you the rule to add. Videos hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, or Bunny are unaffected.

Upgrading

MediaShield includes an automatic migration system. When you update the plugin, database schema changes are applied on the next page load. No manual steps needed.

Upgrading to 1.3.0 also queues a one-off background job that moves previously archived watch sessions back into the live table, so history that earlier versions archived out of reach reappears in your reports. It runs in batches and reschedules itself until finished.

Uninstalling

• Deactivating the plugin unschedules its background jobs but preserves all data, settings, videos, and playlists.
• Deleting the plugin (Plugins > Delete) is destructive. It drops all 6 tables, permanently deletes every MediaShield video and playlist post, removes the upload_mediashield capability from all roles, and clears MediaShield’s options and transients. Options and transients are left in place when MediaShield Pro is still active, so Pro keeps working; the tables and posts are removed either way. Export anything you want to keep before deleting.