> Portal Navigation:
> 
> - Append `.md` to any URL under `https://dev.wix.com/docs/` to get its markdown version.
> - Pages are either content pages (article or reference text) or menu pages (a list of links to child pages).
> - To get a menu page, truncate any URL to a parent path and append `.md` (e.g. `https://dev.wix.com/docs/sdk.md`, `https://dev.wix.com/docs/sdk/core-modules.md`).
> - Top-level index of all portals: https://dev.wix.com/docs/llms.txt
> - Full concatenated docs: https://dev.wix.com/docs/llms-full.txt

## Resource: Private Files

## Article: Private Files

## Article Link: https://dev.wix.com/docs/api-reference/assets/media/media-manager/files/private-files.md

## Article Content:

# Private Files
Private files are protected against public access. This means you can't access them using their file descriptor's `url` property.

You may want to make a file private if it's for sale or contains personal information.

File descriptors for private files still include a top-level `thumbnailUrl` property. For images and videos this is based on the file's contents. For other media types, it contains an icon representing the file type.

## Make your file private
You can make a file private by specifying its `private` property as `true` when you add it to a site using one of the following methods:
- [Import File](https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/assets/media/media-manager/files/import-file.md)
- [Bulk Import File](https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/assets/media/media-manager/files/bulk-import-files.md)
- [Generate File Upload URL](https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/assets/media/media-manager/files/generate-file-upload-url.md)
- [Generate File Resumable Upload URL](https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/assets/media/media-manager/files/generate-file-resumable-upload-url.md)

> **Note:** Making a file private impacts the following file descriptor properties:
> - `yourFile.url`: Has a URL value, but it returns a 403 (unauthorized) response, meaning it won't work.
> - One of the following media URLs has a value of an empty string, depending on the type of file:
>   - Video: `yourFile.media.video.resolutions.url`
>   - Audio: `yourFile.media.audio.assets[X].url`
>   - Document: `yourFile.media.document.url`
>   - Archive: `yourFile.media.archive.url`
>   - Image: `yourFile.media.image.image.url`


## Access a private file
Use [Generate File Download Url](https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/assets/media/media-manager/files/generate-file-download-url.md) to access a private file. Call the method with your private file's ID. This will respond with a new URL that you can use to download the file.