Vanquish Attach Me – Order & Product Attachments for WooCommerce

In a folder inside your uploads directory, three ways round at once. The plugin writes the rules that close a directory to direct access, in the forms Apache and IIS understand. Because nginx honours neither, the path is unguessable as well: each order's files sit under a directory name derived from a secret the plugin generates for your site, rather than from the order number, and every stored file keeps its own name with twelve random characters added. And the way in is the only way in: every download goes through a signed link, which checks whether the person asking placed that order or can manage the shop. There is no switch for any of this. A file attached to an order is private by definition, and an option to serve it insecurely would only ever be turned on by mistake.

Yes. Files are sent to the server in pieces small enough to clear upload_max_filesize and post_max_size, so neither caps what you can attach. The screen shows the maximum it will accept.

Both work. A media library file keeps its own public address in wp-content/uploads — that is how the media library works — so if a file must not be reachable by anyone holding its URL, upload it through the plugin instead of adding it to the library. An external URL is only ever a link: the plugin does not fetch somebody else's file to attach it to your emails.

Yes, with HPOS and with the classic order storage.

No. Your settings, your texts, the files on your products and the files on every order are converted for you. The importer runs from Attach Me → Settings → Import old data, a tab that appears as soon as the old plugin's data is found. It shows how much is left as it goes, and finishes in the background if you close the tab. An order is also converted the first time somebody opens it, whatever happened before. Your files stay where they are on disk and keep working, and the old plugin's download links are still understood. A customer with an account follows one after signing in, and so do you. A link to a guest order's file needs one thing more than the link. Those old URLs were built as ?wcam_id=<order number>-<0, 1, 2...>, which anybody can type out, and a guest order has no account to check the visitor against — so on its own such a link is not proof of anything, and is refused. It works when the request also carries the order key, which is the token WooCommerce puts in the order links it emails: following the file from the customer's own order page works, pasting the bare old URL does not. The old plugin's data is left in place rather than deleted, so nothing is destroyed by importing. You can keep both installed while you check the result, then deactivate the old one.

Yes: proofs are its successor, in Premium. Under Attach Me → Settings → Proofs / File approval, a card appears on any site that has its data, and imports it in one go: each file becomes a proof on its order, with its conversation, the files the customer sent and the customer's answer, each with its date. Its settings and preset answers can come along too. Nothing of the old plugin is changed or deleted, and the import can be run again: what was already imported is skipped. File Approval replaced a file when a new one was sent and kept no history of it, so each proof starts with one version: the file as it is now. The files your customers sent are copied into the protected folder; File Approval kept them in a public one.

Partly, and without doing anything. This plugin has a new name for its translations, so a translation made for "WooCommerce Attach Me!" or "WooCommerce File Approval" (with Loco Translate, say) does not apply to it as it is. But many texts did not change — "Attachments", "Download / View", "Approve", "Reject", "Approved", "Rejected" among them — and for those, when this plugin has no translation of its own, it uses yours. It finds the old files where WordPress and Loco Translate keep them, so the old plugin does not have to stay installed; nothing is copied or changed. Attach Me → Settings → Import old data shows whether one was found for your language. The texts that changed are translated like the rest of the plugin, with Loco Translate for example, and the ones your customers see can also be set under Attach Me → Settings → Texts. The wording you had written in the old plugin's settings is imported with them.

No. The premium package is the same plugin with more in it. Everything described above under "free features" works the same either way, and the settings you have already made are untouched by activating a licence.

There are monthly, yearly and lifetime plans, for one site up to ten. The current prices are on the pricing page. To order, install and activate the free version, then go to Attach Me → Upgrade in your WordPress admin. The plans and a secure checkout, handled by Freemius, are right there, and the same screen walks you through activating Premium on your site.

Yes, and it is strongly recommended. The free version on WordPress.org is the same plugin with fewer features: install it on your own site, with your own theme, and check that the attachments look right on your order pages, your product pages and in your emails before upgrading. Premium adds features on top of it, on the same foundations.

Yes, in Premium, on an image or a PDF proof. Under the file the customer finds a Mark up button: it opens the file full screen, where they can draw freehand, add arrows, boxes, circles and notes in four colours, and undo what they do not like. On a PDF they turn the pages and mark the ones that need changing, up to ten. The drawing is saved as a PNG of the proof with the marks on it — one per page marked — and goes with their answer — "Request changes", say — or as a message on its own. You see it in the conversation, like any other file they send. It is off until you switch it on, under Attach Me → Settings → Proofs / File approval → Files from the customer → Mark up. That switch is where each new file to approve starts; any one file can then have it on or off on its own, from the gear beside it on the order screen. It works with customers' uploads off too. The file has to be one kept on your site: one at another site's address cannot be drawn on.

On purpose. When something happens on a proof, the email is not sent at once: it goes about two minutes later, and everything that happens on the same order in the meantime goes into that one email. Three files uploaded one after another, or an answer followed by a second message, make one email instead of three. This is Premium, as proofs are. You choose the wait under Attach Me → Settings → Proofs / File approval → Emails to the customer → When they go: at once, or after 2, 5 or 10 minutes. "At once" sends one email for each thing that happens. The same wait applies to the emails to the shop. The send is queued with Action Scheduler, the queue WooCommerce itself uses: each one is listed under Tools → Scheduled Actions, hook vanam_proof_notify. On a site with few visitors the queue only runs when someone opens a page, so the two minutes can become more. A real server cron that calls wp-cron.php every minute keeps it on time. For a wait the option does not offer, use the vanam_proof_notify_delay filter, in seconds. It starts from the option and has the last word: add_filter( 'vanam_proof_notify_delay', function () { return 30; } );

Yes, in Premium: open the file's settings (the gear beside it on the order screen) and press Withdraw. It stays on the order with its versions and its conversation, but the customer can no longer answer it, and it no longer counts towards the order status. Before it goes, a switch asks whether to email the customer about it. Under Attach Me → Settings → Proofs / File approval → Withdrawn files you choose whether the customer still sees a withdrawn file, marked as such, or no longer sees it at all, and what the email switch starts as. Restore puts the file back as it was; sending a new version of it does the same. Delete is still there for a file that should leave no trace.

Yes, in Premium. Under the reply box of the file on the order screen, Mark as approved or Mark as rejected records the answer for the customer: what you wrote in the reply box goes with it as a note, and a switch asks whether to email the customer about it. The conversation and the order note say that you marked it, and who did; it moves the order to another status as the customer's own answer would.

By default, the file names in the emails about proofs open the page where the customer approves or rejects, with the file shown large, and the button goes to the same place. Under Attach Me → Settings → Proofs / File approval → Emails to the customer → File names open you can make them open the file itself instead, or leave only the button. Keep "Attach the new version to the email" off as well: most email apps show an attached image inside the email, where it cannot be approved. Developers can choose the address with the vanam_proof_email_file_url filter.

Set Attach Me → Settings → General → Emails → Largest file to attach. A file over that size is not attached: the email carries a download link to it instead, in the same place as the other links. Files under it are attached as before.

Yes, under Attach Me → Settings → Texts: the titles of the boxes and of the product tab, the download buttons, the message when there are no files and the "View attachments" button, and in Premium every text of the proofs and of their emails. The text above the download links in the order emails is set in Default options → Download links in order emails, and on each order. With WPML or Polylang active, the Texts tab shows one language at a time, with the default language's wording under each field.

Nothing of yours is removed. Your settings and your wording stay, the files attached to your orders and products stay, and the files on disk are left alone — so reinstalling puts you back exactly where you were. Only two things go: the plugin's scheduled events, which would otherwise keep firing for a plugin that is no longer installed, and its caches, which would expire on their own anyway.