This article provides you with information regarding inodes and how to reduce them.


An inode is a data structure used to keep information about a file on your hosting account. The number of inodes indicates the number of files and folders you have. This includes everything on your account, emails, files, folders, anything you store on the server.


What are the inode limitations in shared hosting?

  • Shared hosting inode limitations are as per below:



  • Inside your cPanel your current file counter can be found under the statistics section. 




  • When you inode limit is reached you will not be able to to upload files, receive emails  or install plugins on your WordPress for example.
  • You would need to bring down your inode usage for services to resume.



How to reduce inode usage ?


Clear old and Spam emails

  • If you wish to delete unnecessary files, the best place to start would be with old email. 
  • Since each email is one inode, you might have hundreds of unwanted emails sitting in your mailbox. 
  • Once it is deleted from your “deleted items” folder, the file usage counter will decrease. 


Delete Unnecessary Files And Folders

  • Examine the files and folders manually and decide if the file is necessary or not. 
  • In case if the file is an old backup archive or if the folder is created for testing or staging purpose, you may remove it or download it locally via FTP or cPanel >> File Manager and delete it from the server.

 

Clear Cache Files

  • Most of the CMSs uses cache to reduce the response time and application like Joomla can create a lot of cache files which can increase the inode usage tremendously. 
  • Most of the CMSs now provide the facility to purge the cache and you can make use of it to control the number of cache files.