How to check disk usage of directory and bandwidth usage?

Check directory space in cPanel via Files → Disk Usage and bandwidth via Metrics → Bandwidth. On a VPS, use du on Linux or PowerShell or Sysinternals du.exe on Windows, and view bandwidth graphs in Virtualizor.

Before you start

• Log in to the Hostworld client area at portal.hostworld.uk. That is WHMCS.
• Know if your site is on cPanel hosting or on a VPS. The steps differ.
• For VPS checks, have SSH access for Linux or RDP for Windows.

Step 1: Open your control panel

cPanel hosting

1. In WHMCS at portal.hostworld.uk, open Services, click your hosting service, then use Log in to cPanel. This uses WHMCS single sign-on, which has to be enabled for the jump to work. If it is not, you will not be signed straight in and you will need to log in to cPanel with your own cPanel credentials instead.
2. Note: WHMCS also shows disk and bandwidth figures on the service page, but they update on a schedule. For live figures use cPanel itself.

VPS in Virtualizor

1. Log in to Virtualizor for your VPS. This is the panel where your VPS stats, console and power controls live.
2. If you do not have your Virtualizor login details, cannot reach the panel, or cannot see stats for your VPS, open a support ticket.

Step 2: Check directory disk usage

cPanel

1. Go to Files → Disk Usage. Review the top level folders. Bars are relative to the largest folder. Recent deletes may take a few minutes to reflect.
2. Click a folder name to open it in File Manager. In File Manager, use Settings and tick Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) to see items like .htaccess and .wp-cli.
3. If mail is large, go to Email → Email Disk Usage to see big mailboxes and prune old mail. Delete Permanently cannot be undone. If in doubt, move or archive mail in your mail client first.
4. If you see Other Usage, it can be mail metadata, Trash, files outside home, or items you do not have read permission for.

Linux VPS

These commands list immediate subdirectories with human readable sizes. -x keeps to the current filesystem to avoid slow scans across mounts. Run them with sudo. Without it, du will print repeated Permission denied lines for system directories your user cannot read, and the totals will be short.

# List top level of root filesystem
sudo du -h -x --max-depth=1 /

# List one level under a specific path, for example your web root
sudo du -h --max-depth=1 /var/www

If you want an interactive browser, ncdu is available on Debian and Ubuntu. Install it from your distro packages, then run:

ncdu /path/you/want/to/check

Windows VPS

PowerShell can total a folder’s size:

# Total size of a folder and its files
Get-ChildItem 'C:\path\to\folder' -Recurse -File | `
  Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum

For a per directory breakdown at one level, use Microsoft’s Sysinternals du.exe:

du -l 1 C:\path\to\folder

Download du.exe from Microsoft if needed: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/du

Step 3: Check bandwidth usage

cPanel

1. Go to Metrics → Bandwidth. Use Past 24 hours and Past week for recent graphs, Past year totals for history. Monthly pie charts show per service usage such as HTTP, SMTP, FTP, POP3 and IMAP.
2. Figures update about every two hours by default. File Manager transfers, incoming mail delivery, POP or IMAP bytes received, DNS traffic and arbitrary cron spawned processes do not count in these graphs.

Resellers in WHM

1. In WHM, go to Account Information → View Bandwidth Usage to see all accounts you manage.

VPS in Virtualizor

1. Open your VPS in Virtualizor and view the bandwidth graphs for that VPS. If you wish, set a VPS Bandwidth Threshold in Account Settings to receive alerts. To undo later, remove the threshold value.
2. If you do not see graphs or alerts, open a support ticket so we can check your account.

If it does not work

• Numbers look wrong or lagging in cPanel. Disk Usage and Bandwidth are not real time. Wait a few minutes for Disk Usage and a couple of hours for Bandwidth, then refresh. Enable Show Hidden Files in File Manager to spot space you missed. Databases appear in Disk Usage graphs, but quota enforcement for databases is separate.
• du on Linux runs for ages, totals look odd, or you get Permission denied lines. Run it with sudo. Use -x to stay on one filesystem. Target a specific path rather than /. Network mounts or large backups can slow scans drastically.
• Single sign-on does not log you into cPanel, or you cannot see Virtualizor graphs. Open a support ticket and we will check SSO and panel settings for your service.

What next

If you need to free space, be careful what you remove. Deleting files from public_html, or from any other live document root, will take your site offline, and File Manager's Delete Permanently cannot be undone. Take a copy of anything you are unsure about before it goes, or move it out of the web root and confirm the site still loads before you delete it. Old backups, archives and large mailboxes in Email Disk Usage are safer places to start than anything the site is currently serving. For VPS housekeeping and monitoring, see our VPS guides. If you are comparing options for more headroom, see our Linux VPS. If anything is unclear, open a support ticket and we will take a look.