Support

You are very late for this party. I have already addressed this back in April of 2025. As I wrote in the release notes all those months ago:

Support for top-level files folder introduced in Joomla! 5.3.0. Joomla! 5.3 added a new top-level folder called files which is similar to the images folder, but for non-media files. You could use it, for example, to serve PDF, ZIP, or other files. The .htaccess Maker includes an exception for it by default, and visiting the Admin Tools Control Panel on Joomla! 5.3 after upgrading to Admin Tools 7.7.2 will add it to your current .htaccess configuration (this will only happen once, and you still get to review your .htaccess configuration before regenerating the .htaccess file).

If you have not updated to 7.7.2 or a newer version, or have not visited the Admin Tools control panel page after upgrading Admin Tools then, yes, this change has not been made. Do remember that any .htaccess Maker configuration changes are only made after visiting the control panel page.

If you have not gone to the .htaccess Maker to click on Save & Create .htaccess or click the create .htaccess button in the Admin Tools control panel page when it detects that your configuration has diverged from what the on-disk state of your .htaccess then this change is in your config, but not in your .htaccess file.

Moreover, if you have ended up manually or automatically changing your .htaccess Maker configuration such as but not limited to syncing .htaccess Maker configuration between different sites, importing a previous version of the configuration, etc then that configuration entry might not be be there. You can very easily add it back manually. Edit the .htaccess Maker configuration and add files into the “Front-end directories where file type exceptions are allowed”. Remember to click on Save & Create .htaccess to create the new .htaccess file.