Hosting plans limit two things that are easy to confuse: disk space, measured in gigabytes, and inodes, the number of files and folders. You can run out of either one.
What uses disk space
- Your website files and uploaded images.
- Databases.
- Email: every message in every mailbox on the account, including sent items and spam.
- Backups stored inside the account.
- Logs and caches.
On many accounts, email is the largest item by far, quietly growing for years.
What uses inodes
Every file counts as one inode, however small. Caches that create thousands of tiny files, old installations, unextracted archives and mail folders full of small messages are the usual culprits.
What happens when you hit a limit
New uploads fail, email may bounce, and some applications stop working properly. It rarely happens overnight, so it is worth checking usage now and then in cPanel.
Cleaning up safely
- Take a full backup first.
- Empty spam and trash folders, and archive or delete very old email.
- Remove old backup files stored in the account; keep backups somewhere else.
- Delete test sites, old installations and unused plugins or themes.
- Clear caches from inside the application, rather than deleting folders by hand.
When cleaning is not enough
If your site has genuinely grown, move to a larger plan, or put large media and archives on object storage and keep the hosting account lean. Heavy email users may be better served by a dedicated business email plan, which keeps mailboxes off the website account.
At IDX
The knowledge base explains what to do when disk space is full, and our support team can help you find what is using the space.
IDX on digital infrastructure
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