Preventing Directory Listings with htaccess

When a URL specifying only a directory is requested, for example http://www.somedomain.com/directoryname/, the web server looks for the following file names , index.html, index.htm, home.html, or, home.htm. If it finds a file by this name, it will serve the file, otherwise it will display a directory listing showing all the files in the directory. This behavior can be changed with the .htaccess "IndexIgnore" directive.

To prevent files from being listed, create a .htaccess file with the following directive within the directory that you want to protect:

IndexIgnore *

The * symbol is a "wild-card" that matches all files. Specific files can also be ignored. For example, to ignore files with .jpg extension (*.jpg), create a .htaccess file with the following directive:

IndexIgnore *.jpg

The .htaccess file affects the directory in which it is placed, and, directories recursively below it.