Check Disk Usage

Your hosting plan includes a limited amount of disk space. Regularly checking your disk usage helps you stay within your limit and identify which files or folders are taking up the most space.

Viewing Your Total Disk Usage

1. Log in to your cPanel control panel
2. Look at the cPanel Dashboard (home page) — you'll see a Disk Usage meter at the top
3. The colored bar shows your current usage versus your plan's total limit
4. Hover over or click the bar to see the exact breakdown

Example display: "Your account is using 2.5 GB out of 50 GB"

Detailed Disk Usage Breakdown

To see which categories (email, databases, files, etc.) consume space:

1. In the Files section, click Disk Usage
2. A detailed chart appears showing space used by:
- public_html — your website files
- Mail accounts — emails stored on the server
- MySQL databases — database storage
- Other folders — backups, logs, and other directories
3. Click on any category to drill down and see individual folders or databases

Finding Large Files and Folders

1. Open File Manager (in the Files section)
2. Navigate through your directories and look for folders that seem unusually large
3. To find the biggest files:
- Right-click a folder and select View as List (if not already showing file sizes)
- Sort by Size to see the largest files first
4. Look for:
- Old or unused plugins/themes (especially in WordPress: /wp-content/uploads/)
- Log files (often in /logs/ folders)
- Old backups or archives you can delete
- Oversized media (high-resolution images or videos)

Freeing Up Space

Once you identify what's consuming space:

• Delete old emails in cPanel's Email Accounts → check email storage for each account
• Remove unused databases — go to MySQL Databases and delete old test databases
• Compress or archive large files — use File Manager to create .zip files and download them locally
• Clean up temporary uploads — check any file upload folders for old or forgotten files
• Remove old backups — if you have local backups stored on your server, download and delete them

Email Storage Warnings

Email usually consumes the most space:

1. Go to Email Accounts in cPanel
2. Look for accounts with large mailboxes
3. Log in to that email account and delete old emails, especially those with attachments
4. Empty the Trash/Deleted Items folder

Tip: Ask users to archive or download their email periodically rather than storing years of messages on the server.

What to Do If You're Out of Space

If you're near or at your limit:

• Upgrade your plan — contact your provider to increase disk space
• Reduce email retention — set automatic email deletion rules for very old messages
• Move media to external storage — download high-resolution images/videos and replace them with smaller versions
• Archive old databases — export and download old databases, then delete them

Check your disk usage monthly to stay ahead of limits and maintain good website performance.