My hosting is full: what now?

Full hosting rarely announces itself. The symptoms are email that stops arriving, sends that fail, or a site that suddenly throws errors.

First look at what is taking the space

In almost every case it is three things: mailboxes, backups on the same hosting, and unused media. Together they often take more than the website itself.

Mailboxes

A ten-year-old account with attachments takes gigabytes. Archive locally or clear sent items and trash — usually the quickest win.

Backups

Copies stored on the same hosting fill the space and protect you from nothing if the server fails. Move them elsewhere.

Logs and cache

They grow silently. Check whether rotation is in place; without it a single file can be several gigabytes.

Then decide

If space is still tight after cleaning up, upgrade. But upgrading before cleaning up simply means paying more for the same mess.