Managing Disk Space

Every shared hosting plan has a fixed amount of disk space, shared by your website files, databases and every mailbox on the account. When it runs out, uploads fail, new email bounces and database writes break, often all at once. This guide shows how to see what is using your space, what usually fills an account, and how to clean it up safely before you pay for a bigger plan.

1. Why a full disk breaks more than uploads

Your plan's disk space is one pool. The website, its databases and all mailboxes draw from it together, so a single mailbox full of attachments can stop your WordPress site saving posts. A full account typically shows up as:

• uploads and plugin updates failing;
• email senders getting "mailbox full" or "quota exceeded" bounces, even for mailboxes with room of their own;
• database errors, because MySQL can't write;
• a site that stops working after a backup or import fills the last of the space.

There is a second limit to know about: inodes, the number of files and folders. A cache folder with tens of thousands of tiny files can hit this limit while plenty of megabytes are still free.

2. Check your usage

In cPanel:

In DirectAdmin and Webuzo: the account's disk usage is shown in the panel, but menu names differ between versions. If you can't find it, open a ticket and we will read your account's usage for you. DirectAdmin users with SSH can follow Managing disk space with jailed SSH in DirectAdmin.

For CPU, memory and other limits, see Check hosting resource usage.

3. What usually takes the space

4. Clean up email

Mail is often the biggest single user of space, and it is easy to miss because it lives outside your website folder.

• Check each mailbox. In cPanel, Email › Email Accounts shows each address's usage and quota. See Manage email quotas for setting sensible sizes.
• Delete in bulk. cPanel's Email Disk Usage tool removes messages from a chosen folder by age or size, which is much faster than deleting in webmail.
• Empty Trash and Junk. In webmail, emptying these folders frees the space straight away.
• Keep an archive if you need one. If you must keep old mail, set the mailbox up in an email program with IMAP and move the old messages to a local folder on your computer first.

5. Remove old backups, archives and logs

Archives and backup files. Look in your home folder and website folder for .zip, .tar.gz and .sql files left over from migrations, manual backups or plugin exports. Download anything you want to keep to your own computer, then delete it from the server. An archive left inside public_html is also a security risk, because anyone who guesses its name can download your whole site.

Installer backups. Softaculous and WP Toolkit can keep a backup before each update. Open the installer, find your site's backups and delete the older ones.

Log archives. On cPanel, the logs folder in your home directory holds monthly archives of your web server logs. You can delete old archives there. In cPanel's Metrics › Raw Access, you can also choose whether to archive logs and whether to remove the previous month's archive automatically.

The Trash. Files deleted in cPanel's File Manager go to a Trash folder and still count towards your space. Open File Manager, click View Trash and Empty Trash when you are sure. DirectAdmin's File Manager keeps deleted files in its Trash Bin for 30 days.

6. Slim down databases

A WordPress database grows with post revisions, spam and trashed comments, expired transients and the log tables some plugins create.

• Clean up inside the app first. Empty spam and trash comments, delete old revisions, and remove tables left behind by plugins you no longer use.
• Optimise the tables. In phpMyAdmin, select the database, tick all tables and choose Optimize table from the menu. This rebuilds the tables and releases unused space.
• Watch for runaway log tables. Security, form and statistics plugins can log every request. Limit their retention in the plugin's settings.

For larger database problems, see Managing high disk usage of MySQL and Database troubleshooting.

7. Find large files with SSH

Jailed SSH is available on every shared hosting plan. It is off by default; ask support to enable it for your account, and log in with an SSH key. See enabling and accessing jailed SSH. Once you are in, these commands list the biggest folders and files:

# biggest folders in your home directory
du -h --max-depth=1 ~ 2>/dev/null | sort -h

# files over 50 MB
find ~ -type f -size +50M -exec ls -lh {} + 2>/dev/null

Check what a file is before you delete it. Never delete folders outside your website folder that you don't recognise, such as mail, etc or .cpanel: they hold your email and panel settings.

8. When cleaning up isn't enough

If your site and mail genuinely need more room, upgrade. An active cPanel or DirectAdmin plan can move to a bigger plan at any time: open your hosting service and click Change plan. You pay only the difference until your renewal date, plus 18% GST, and nothing needs to be moved. Webuzo and Windows customers should contact support first. See Upgrading your hosting plan.

If a site has outgrown shared hosting, a VPS gives you your own disk allocation, managed by you.

Prices on the cards exclude 18% GST.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to reclaim your space? Open your hosting list to reach your control panel, compare plans on cPanel hosting, or open a ticket and we will help you find what is filling the account.