Safe ways to free disk space inside cPanel
1. Email Disk Usage (biggest space saver)
- cPanel → Email → Email Disk Usage
- Select an email account
- Look for folders with large storage (Inbox, Sent, Trash, Spam)
- Use the dropdown → Delete Permanently
Repeat for each account/domain
Tip: Sent folders often hold enormous attachments.
2. Delete old Backups
cPanel → Files → File Manager
Look in:
/home/USERNAME/
/home/USERNAME/backups/
/home/USERNAME/public_html/
/home/USERNAME/softaculous_backups/
Delete files like:
backup-*.tar.gz
*.zip
*.sql
softaculous_backups/*
These are usually safe if you have external copies.
3. Clean Site Caches
Depending on CMS:
WordPress
wp-content/cache - Everything inside is safe to delete
Joomla
administrator/cache and cache/ - Remove cached files only
Drupal
sites/default/files/php - Remove cache files only
Use File Manager to browse & empty those folders.
If unsure, tell me your site type & I’ll point to the right cache folder.
4. Clear Temporary Files
cPanel → File Manager
Check /home/USERNAME/tmp/
Safe to delete files inside this folder.
5. Remove Unused Themes, Plugins, Installations
- cPanel → Applications Installer (Softaculous / WordPress Manager)
- Remove sites you no longer use
- Delete unused staging installs
- Remove unused themes/plugins inside WordPress Manager
Unused installations can consume GBs.
6. Check Disk Usage Tool
cPanel → Disk Usage
You can’t delete from here, but use it to locate large folders.
Then return to File Manager to clean the heavy ones.
Look especially for:
- mail/
- public_html/wp-content/uploads/
- softaculous_backups/
- tmp/
- backups/
7. Database clean-up (no SQL commands)
cPanel → phpMyAdmin
Open database
Select large tables like wp_options, wp_posts, wp_yoast_indexable, cache_*
Use Optimize Table
This removes overhead & reduces DB size safely
Do NOT delete entire tables without guidance.
Avoid deleting these areas
These are critical and should remain untouched:
/public_html/ Contains live website files
/var/... System-level — not editable in cPanel
/public_ftp/ Rarely large, but core FTP dir files
mysql/ folders live databases
If you’re unsure about any of these — ask us first! We're here to help.
