Send a 404 error via htaccess?

Question

I'd like to cut off access to a subdirectory on my site but I want any access in the subdirectory to be a 404 error, not a 403 forbidden. How can this be accomplished?

Answer 1

You could also for the time being change which page a user will see when confronted with a 403 error, but I wouldn't recommend doing this long-term.

.htaccess:

ErrorDocument 403 /your404pagehere.php

Answer 2

Try:

RewriteRule ^directory/ - [L,R=404]

This redirects all requests for the folder "/directory/", they get a 404 response.