Disk Usage: finding what fills your account

The account is filling up and you do not know why. cPanel has a screen built for this: Disk Usage, in the Files section. It shows, folder by folder, how much space each one takes, and adds what is not a folder: databases, e-mail accounts, e-mail archives and mailing lists. In five minutes you know where the weight is.

How to read the screen

1 Open Disk Usage in cPanel. The top shows the total space used by the account and warns when it nears the quota.
2 Sort the folders by size (the Sort directories by field) so the heaviest come first.
3 Click the name of a big folder to see the folders it contains, and keep going down until you find the one that weighs. All the figures are relative to the largest folder.
4 When you know which one it is, use Open This Directory In File Manager to look at it and decide in the File Manager.
5 Also look at the lines that are not folders: e-mail and databases count against the quota and have their own place where they are cleaned.

What usually weighs, and where to look

Suspect Where it lives What to do
An error_log file that has grown In the folder of each script that raises errors Read it, fix the cause and then delete it. See where the PHP error log is.
Forgotten full backups In the home folder, .tar.gz files with “backup” in the name Download to your computer and delete from the account. See making a full cPanel backup.
Full mailboxes, Trash and Spam On the e-mail accounts line Empty Trash and Spam and delete old mail. See your mailbox is full.
WordPress uploads and copies In wp-content, in the uploads and plugin-copy folders Delete copies of old plugins. Do not delete the site’s uploads folder without knowing what is in it.
A database that has grown On the databases line See the database has grown: what can go.
The File Manager’s trash In a hidden .trash folder in the account What you delete in the File Manager goes to the trash and keeps taking space until you empty it.
Disk Usage figures can be out of date. The screen warns that the values may not reflect recent changes, and that files in practice take more space than their real size. If you have just deleted something and the total has not dropped, wait and reopen the screen before concluding it did not work.
Do not delete what you do not recognise. In particular mail, etc and the site folder (public_html) hold what makes the account work. If in doubt, download first and ask us.
Free space and still unable to save: the limit may be the number of files (inodes) rather than the weight. It is explained in the limits nobody advertises: inodes, processes and memory.

Cleaned up and the account is still full? Tell us what Disk Usage shows for the three biggest folders.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

The limits nobody advertises: inodes, processes and memory

Your mailbox is full: what to delete and how to stop it happening

The database has grown: where to see its size, and what can go

Making a full cPanel backup and downloading it

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