Using htaccess, how to restrict seeing directory contents, but allow server to use the contents?

Question

More specifically, I have an htaccess file that restricts anyone from seeing the directory contents. Such that, nobody can see my 1000s of images in www.example.com/images by us

Answer 1

All you need to keep people from seeing the directory contents is an index.php or .html file in that folder. Any requests for yoursite.com/images will load index.php, which you'll set to a dummy page.

index.html could be something like:

Nothing to see here...

or a redirect script index.php:

Don't use .htaccess for blocking directory listings, it blocks access to everything.