diff --git a/readthedocs/core/static.py b/readthedocs/core/static.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..89cd883877e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/readthedocs/core/static.py
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+from __future__ import division, print_function, unicode_literals
+
+from django.contrib.staticfiles.finders import FileSystemFinder
+
+
+class SelectiveFileSystemFinder(FileSystemFinder):
+
+    """
+    Add user media paths in ``media/`` to ignore patterns.
+
+    This allows collectstatic inside ``media/`` without collecting all of the
+    paths that include user files
+    """
+
+    def list(self, ignore_patterns):
+        ignore_patterns.extend(['epub', 'pdf', 'htmlzip', 'json', 'man'])
+        return super(SelectiveFileSystemFinder, self).list(ignore_patterns)
diff --git a/readthedocs/settings/base.py b/readthedocs/settings/base.py
index f092cd7e6a3..a9113c7ee08 100644
--- a/readthedocs/settings/base.py
+++ b/readthedocs/settings/base.py
@@ -176,6 +176,10 @@ def USE_PROMOS(self):  # noqa
         os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'readthedocs', 'static'),
         os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'media'),
     ]
+    STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
+        'readthedocs.core.static.SelectiveFileSystemFinder',
+        'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
+    ]
 
     TEMPLATES = [
         {