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Each email account has a storage limit. When a mailbox is full, new emails bounce back to the sender, so it’s worth fixing quickly. This guide shows you how.

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Signs your mailbox is full

  • People tell you their emails to you bounced, with a message like “mailbox full” or “quota exceeded”.
  • Your email app shows a storage warning.
  • You can’t send email, or save sent messages.

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Check your mailbox size

Log in to cPanel and open Email Accounts. Each address shows how much space it’s using and its limit. To see which folders inside a mailbox are biggest, open Email Disk Usage.

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Option 1: Free up space

  • Empty Trash and Spam. Deleted emails often still use space until these folders are emptied.
  • Delete large emails, especially old ones with attachments. In Webmail, sort messages by size.
  • Clear old Sent items.
  • Use Email Disk Usage in cPanel to delete old messages from a folder in one go, for example everything older than a year.
Deleting emails on the server deletes them everywhere if you use IMAP, including on your phone and computer. Save anything important first.

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Option 2: Increase the mailbox limit

1

Open Email Accounts

In cPanel, open Email Accounts.
2

Manage the account

Click Manage next to the email address.
3

Change the storage

Under Storage, enter a larger amount, or choose unlimited if it’s offered. Click Update Email Settings.
Mailbox storage comes out of your hosting account’s total disk space. If your account itself is full, increasing a mailbox limit won’t help. Check your overall usage in Check disk and resource usage, and upgrade your plan if you need more space.

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Keep it from filling up again

  • Archive old emails to your computer once or twice a year.
  • Ask people to send large files with a file-sharing link instead of an attachment.
Still stuck? Open a ticket with the email address that’s full.