I had the need to track file downloads on a website.

I initially looked into using URL shorteners that provided stats, as I assumed that was my only option without a backend (was building a static site) but nothing really excited me.

Then I saw Plausible can track file downloads.

It’s pretty simple, too, you just have to swap the default script and list which file extensions you want to track, in my case pdf and epub. PDF files would be tracked by default but epub no, so I needed to add both.

From

<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script>

to

<script defer file-types="pdf,epub" data-domain="yourdomain.com" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.file-downloads.js"></script>

And then add a goal named “File Download” in the website settings.

Super easy, works like a charm.