Before following the steps detailed below to find out what uses the most disk space on your web hosting account, begin by logging on to cPanel.
What is using the most disk space?
To reach the feature, click Disk Usage under Files.
cPanel will now analyse your account, going through all files to check how much disk space everything uses.
If your account contains many files, this process may requre a lot of time, sometimes as much as days,
Once everything done loading, on top, you’ll see a list of all folders in your home directory and how much space files and folders within them use. Here you’ll see the first clue to what uses up the most space. E.g., if you see that the folder mail has the highest disk usage, your mail accounts fill up the account the most. On the other hand, if the folder public_html has the biggest disk usage, it’s probably one of your websites that use the most space.
Disk usage reported as Files in hidden subdirectories can be due to files in the .trash folder (the trashbin of the account). You can read about how to emtpy the trash here.
If you scroll down on the page, you will se a list of all folders in your home directory. Here you can drill down into the folders and investigate more deeply what uses your disk space.
Once you’ve found a folder you wish to investigate, click the tiny arrow to the left of the folder’s name. Now, the folder will expand and you’ll see how much space the various folders contained inside uses. In this example we check the public_html folder.
When you’ve located a folder that you want to manage the content of, click the folder’s name to open it in the File Manager available on your web hosting account.
Clean out email messages
If you’ve found that email is what uses most disk space on your web hosting account, you have access to a feature under cPanel that allows you to clean out old messages. To access is, click Email Disk Usage on the cPanel landing page.
This tool will help you recognise what folders on your email accounts that use the most space. It also allows you to easily delete messages from these folders.
After clicking the icon, you will be shown the default email account (indicated as System Account in this interface). All web hosting accounts have a default account for email, however, it usually contain no email messages. All email accounts created can be seen in the dropdown menu by the top, next to Account. Select an account to see its details.
If you’re uncertain about what messages are stored on a specific email account, you can access the account via the webmail to check it out.
The image below shows that the Sent folder contains more than 270 MB. If you click Manage to the right, you will see options for e.g. removing email messages based on how old they are or how much space they use.
Once you’ve selected what kind of messages you want to delete, click the Delete Permanently button. The messages that match your selection will now be deleted and you will gain access to additional disk space.
Keep in mind that this is a very general way to delete email messages. If you want to have more control regarding what is being deleted, you’d better go through your messages manually and delete the ones you do not wish to save.
If you deleted anything by accident, you can restore your email account via Acronis backup.