High Inode usage could be detrimental to your account and overall hosting experience. In this article, we are going to review regular practices along with useful advice about how you can keep this resource intact. 

What is an Inode, and where can I see my current count?

First, let's briefly discuss what an Inode is. In concise terms, Inodes represent any file or folder your account is currently holding. You can check the Inode usage for your Web Hosting account inside the cPanel service by logging in and pointing your attention to the "Statistics" section on the right side, directly underneath the "General Information" section. 

But my websites are really small! Why is my Inode usage so high?

Interestingly enough, most website owners do not even have the slightest idea that their Inode usage has increased. Typically, this growth could be caused by a few things:

• A lot of incoming mail. The culprit in this situation could be either spam or bounce-back messages if your account has been compromised. In this situation, you should check your email account's size. If this is indeed the case, you will see that their size is larger than usual.
• Your website is utilizing a caching system, and this cache is not being renewed. Instead, it is stacked on top of each other, resulting in high Inode usage. In this case, you can check our find command article. In the last example, we provide you with a script that shows you the Inode usage on the entire account and if the cache is responsible for the high Inode counts you will see this displayed by the command.
• Regular uploads of images and files on your site, done by either you, your developer or your clients. In this situation, you should check the Inode stats of your account daily and make sure you have enough while considering the number of uploads you are performing. You may also review the older content on your account and remove anything you are not using. Your last option would be to consider an upgrade of your hosting account to a plan able to accommodate a larger Inode count. Our sales team is 24/7 available through the live chat on our website, and they will be more than happy to suggest a plan you can upgrade to, depending on your needs.

I understand the reason behind my Inode count. How can I remove the files/folders I do not need.

There are three ways you can go about removing the unnecessary files and folders on your account:

1. Through FTP - Once connected, please navigate to the folder, which occupies the highest number of Inodes and delete them. If the files are too many, and you need to remove every single one within a given directory - delete the whole folder and then re-create it.
2. Through the cPanel's File Manager - When you have accessed the FileManager, navigate to the folder with the largest Inode count, and remove the unnecessary ones.
3. Through SSH - When you connect through SSH, please execute the last example of the find command. Afterward, navigate to the directory utilizing the largest Inode count, using the commands provided in our Linux Commands Basics and remove them. A small tip we can give you here in a situation where you want to delete ALL files within a directory is to remove the folder itself and then re-create it.

As always, HostArmada's professional Technical Team is 24/7 available at your disposal, and if you are not able to handle the process of removing the unneeded inodes on your account - they will be happy to assist you. Contact them by submitting a ticket from your client area.