Disk and inode usage
If your host has told you the account is full, or you have hit an inode limit, the usual fix is to clear the cache folder, delete old backup files stored inside the account, and empty mailboxes that have been collecting
The short answer
If your host has told you the account is full, or you have hit an inode limit, the usual fix is to clear the cache folder, delete old backup files stored inside the account, and empty mailboxes that have been collecting mail for years. Check the disk usage report in your hosting console before deleting anything, so you know which folder is actually the problem.
If the site is already showing errors because the disk is full, clearing the cache folder is the safest first move and usually frees space within a minute.
What it means
Every hosting account has two limits that work in different ways. The first is disk space, the total size of everything stored in the account: your website files, images, database, email and anything else sitting on the server. The second is inodes. An inode is a slot in the file system’s index that every single file and folder uses up, no matter how small. A tiny log file and a large video each take exactly one inode.
The second limit is the one that surprises people. A site can be well under its space allowance and still be “full” because something has created hundreds of thousands of tiny files. Cache plugins and email are the usual culprits.
When either limit is hit, the symptoms look similar: uploads fail, the site may show a database error, scheduled tasks stop running, email bounces, and backups cannot complete. None of that is permanent damage. Once space or inodes are freed, everything comes back.
Common causes
- Cache folders. Caching plugins write a file for every page, and some write one per visitor or per URL variation. The
wp-content/cachefolder can quietly grow to hundreds of thousands of files. - Backups stored inside the account. Backup plugins often save zip files to
wp-contentor the web root, and a year of weekly backups adds up fast. Old migration zips left in the web root count too. - Email. If your mail is hosted on the same account, every message and attachment is a file. A catch-all address or a mailbox nobody checks can hold years of mail.
- Image sizes. WordPress makes several copies of each upload (thumbnail, medium, large and more, plus any sizes your theme adds). One photo can become ten files.
- Plugin logs and leftovers. Security, form and backup plugins write logs. Deactivated plugins often leave their data behind.
How to fix it
- Find the big folders. In Plesk, open Websites & Domains, then Statistics / Disk usage, and look at which folder is taking the space. In cPanel the equivalent is Files > Disk Usage. If you have SSH access,
du -sh */inside the web root lists folder sizes, andfind . -type f | wc -lcounts files. These commands work the same on any host. - Clear the cache. Purge from the caching plugin first. If that does not shrink the folder, delete the contents of
wp-content/cachein File Manager. The plugin rebuilds it as visitors arrive. - Move backups off the server. Download any backup zips in the web root or
wp-content, then delete them from the account. Set your backup plugin to store to cloud storage instead of locally. - Clean up email. In Plesk go to Mail, in cPanel go to Email Accounts, and check each mailbox size. Delete or archive old mail, empty the Trash and Spam folders, and remove mailboxes nobody uses.
- Trim the uploads folder. Go to Settings > Media in WordPress and set any image sizes you do not need to 0. Remove unused plugins under Plugins > Installed Plugins. Delete them properly rather than just deactivating, so their files go too.
- Check the database. Under Databases in Plesk, open phpMyAdmin and sort tables by size. Post revisions, transients and old logs from form or security plugins often take most of the space.
- Recheck the usage report. Refresh Statistics / Disk usage to confirm the number has dropped.
On WP Alpha
Storage is the only plan limit on WP Alpha, so there is no separate inode count to run into. The only question is how much space your site uses. Databases count towards that storage figure, so a bloated database shows up in the same number as a bloated uploads folder. VERIFY: storage per plan
Our own backups run every two hours and are kept for 30 days. VERIFY: whether platform backups count towards storage If you also want copies in your own hands, you can send backups to your own Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 or FTP as often as hourly, which means you never need to keep backup zips in the web root. SSH, SFTP, WP-CLI and phpMyAdmin are all available if you want to run the du and database checks above yourself, or ask support on live chat and we will find the big folders for you.