cPanel provides a built-in disk usage tool that shows how much storage space is consumed by directories and databases within an account. This information helps identify large folders, manage storage limits, and troubleshoot space-related issues.
Accessing the Disk Usage tool
Disk usage information is available directly from the cPanel interface.
- Log in to your cPanel account.
- Open the Tools page.
- In the Files section, click Disk Usage.
[Screenshot placeholder: cPanel Tools page showing Disk Usage]
The Disk Usage page is available on standard cPanel hosting environments.
Understanding disk usage graphs
After opening the Disk Usage page, cPanel displays bar graphs that represent storage usage by directory.
- Each bar shows the relative size of a directory compared to others.
- Larger bars indicate higher disk consumption.
If the account contains many files, calculating usage may take several minutes.
[Screenshot placeholder: Disk usage bar graphs]
Viewing usage by directory
Below the graphs, disk usage is listed per directory:
- Values are shown in both megabytes and bytes.
- Directories can be expanded to view subdirectory usage.
To open a subdirectory, click the > icon next to the directory name.
[Screenshot placeholder: Directory list with expandable folders]
Sorting disk usage data
You can sort the directory list to analyze storage usage more efficiently.
- Click Name to sort alphabetically.
- Click Disk Usage to sort by size.
Sorting by size is the fastest way to identify directories that consume the most space.
File level usage checks
For more granular inspection, File Manager can be used to review disk usage of individual files. This is useful when tracking down large uploads, backups, or log files.
Accounts with frequent storage growth or high data volumes may benefit from scalable resources such as cloud servers or higher capacity solutions like a dedicated server.