The buyer pays with PayPal - or by card, without a PayPal account, when guest checkout is on - and lands on a thank-you page that cannot be opened without a valid token. PayDrop verifies the transaction directly with PayPal before a single byte leaves your server, then issues a one-time download link with its own lifetime and download limit. The same link is e-mailed to the buyer, so a closed browser window does not turn into a support ticket.

Your files never sit at a public URL. PayDrop closes the folder to the web by itself, writing the guard files and reporting the protection status in the admin, and streams every download through Joomla instead of exposing a path.

Key features

```
- Verified payments - every transaction is checked with PayPal before a file is served
- One-time download links with configurable lifetime and download limit
- Files folder closed to the web automatically, with status shown in the admin
- Card payments without a PayPal account, when guest checkout is enabled
- Download link e-mailed to the buyer
- Upload files straight from the product form
- Editor button that inserts the shortcode for you
- Sales overview: buyer, amount, PayPal transaction id, download count
- Works on Joomla 4, 5 and 6

WHAT YOU CAN SELL

Anything you can put in a folder: ZIP archives, PDF e-books, PSD templates, EPUB, audio, video, print-ready artwork.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Create a product: upload the file, set a price, pick the article buyers return to after paying.
2. Insert its shortcode in your sales article, or use the button under the editor.
3. The buyer pays through PayPal.
4. PayDrop verifies the payment, issues a one-time link and e-mails it.
5. You watch the sales come in under Sales & Downloads.

SECURITY

PayDrop was built security-first, and that is not a slogan:

• The files folder is protected automatically (.htaccess, web.config, index.html) and the admin tells you whether it worked. On nginx it tells you which rule to add.
• File paths are resolved with realpath() and confined to the configured folder, so traversal, absolute paths and symlink escapes are rejected.
• Tokens are compared in constant time.
• Each PayPal transaction can be redeemed once. Links expire and have a download limit.
• Tokenised pages are excluded from the page cache and tokens are never written into cached HTML, so one buyer can never be served another buyer's link.
• Uploads accept only a fixed list of non-executable types; names like file.php.zip are refused.
• Every write action requires a CSRF token and the matching Joomla permission.

PRIVACY AND EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS

For each sale PayDrop stores the buyer name and e-mail as supplied by PayPal, the amount, the PayPal transaction id and a download counter. Any of it can be deleted from the Sales & Downloads screen at any time.

The only outgoing connection PayDrop makes is the payment verification request to paypal.com, sent when a buyer returns from checkout. There is no telemetry, no licence phone-home and no other external call.

WHAT IS IN THE PACKAGE

One component and three plugins, all enabled for you at install time: the component (products, sales, options), a system plugin (guards the thank-you page, verifies payments, issues links), a content plugin (shortcode to buy button) and an editor button (inserts shortcodes).

FOR DEVELOPERS

After a verified purchase PayDrop fires onPaydropPurchase($product, $paypalData, $downloadLink), so you can issue licence keys, notify a CRM, or hook in anything else that should happen on a sale.