Understanding and Managing Disk Space

Disk space is the amount of storage allocated to your hosting account for website files, databases, email, and logs. Every hosting plan comes with a specific disk space allocation. This guide explains what counts toward your disk space, how to check usage, and how to free up space when you're running low.

01. What Counts Toward Disk Space

• Website files - HTML, PHP, images, CSS, JavaScript, PDFs, and any other files in public_html
• Databases - MariaDB/MySQL databases used by WordPress, other CMS, or custom applications
• Email - all messages stored on the server across all your email accounts. Large mailboxes are often the biggest space consumer
• Backups - cPanel backups stored in your account (home directory backups, database dumps)
• Logs - access logs, error logs, and other server-generated log files
• Hidden files - cache directories, .trash, session files, and other dotfiles

02. How to Check Your Usage

Quick Overview

Log into cPanel. The right sidebar of the dashboard shows "Disk Usage" with your current usage and limit (e.g., "2.1 GB / 10 GB").

Detailed Breakdown

Go to cPanel > Disk Usage (in the Files section). This shows a breakdown by directory so you can see exactly what's consuming space. Click any directory to expand it and drill down.

Email Usage

Go to cPanel > Email Accounts. Each account shows its current disk usage. Mailboxes with large attachments or years of email can consume gigabytes.

03. How to Free Up Space

1. Clean up email - delete old messages, empty Trash and Junk folders in all mailboxes. This is usually the biggest win
2. Delete old backups - check your home directory for old backup archives (.tar.gz files). Remove them via File Manager
3. Remove unused WordPress themes and plugins - each inactive theme/plugin takes space. Delete (not just deactivate) ones you don't need
4. Clear cache files - WordPress caching plugins store static files. Purge the cache, and consider reducing cache size in plugin settings
5. Optimize images - large unoptimized images consume significant space. Use a plugin like ShortPixel or Imagify to compress them
6. Clean up databases - WordPress databases accumulate post revisions, spam comments, and transients. Use WP-Optimize or WP-Sweep to clean them
7. Check error logs - cPanel > Errors. Large error logs can consume space. Fix the underlying errors and clear the logs

04. Inode (File Count) Limits

In addition to disk space, hosting accounts have an inode limit. An inode represents a single file or directory on the server. Every file, email message, database entry, cache file, and directory counts as one inode. On shared hosting accounts, the inode limit is 200,000 files.

You can have plenty of free disk space but still hit the inode limit if you have a very large number of small files (thousands of cache files, years of email, many WordPress plugins).

Symptoms of Hitting the Inode Limit

• Unable to receive new email
• Unable to create new files or upload via FTP
• Webmail errors such as "Cannot write to cache directory /tmp/horde"
• WordPress errors when saving posts or uploading media
• cPanel backups failing

How to Check Your Inode Usage

Log into cPanel. The right sidebar of the dashboard shows "Inodes" with your current file count and limit. You can also run this in cPanel > Terminal to see which directories have the most files:

find ~/public_html -type f | wc -l
find ~/mail -type f | wc -l

How to Reduce Inode Usage

• Email - each email message is a file. Delete old messages, empty Trash and Junk. This is often the biggest contributor
• WordPress cache - caching plugins can create thousands of static HTML files. Purge the cache and reduce the cache size
• WordPress sessions/transients - clean up with WP-Optimize
• Unused themes/plugins - each plugin contains dozens of files. Delete unused ones
• Old backups - compressed backups are one file, but extracted backups can be thousands

05. Need More Disk Space

If you've cleaned up and still need more space, you can upgrade to a higher hosting plan from your client area. For sites with very large storage needs (media libraries, large databases), consider a VPS.

Quick Recap

1. Check usage in cPanel - dashboard sidebar or Disk Usage tool
2. Email is often the biggest consumer - clean up old mailboxes first
3. Delete old backups - .tar.gz files in your home directory
4. Remove unused themes/plugins - delete, don't just deactivate
5. Upgrade if needed - from your client area

Last updated March 2026 · Browse all Hosting Control Panel articles