Did you search your cPanel account to find an option that would clear the “File Usage” cache in order to increase “File Usage” disk space, but unable to find an option? Don’t worry, you’re in the right place.
In this tutorial we will guide you step-by-step to how to clear your “File Usage” cache directly from your WordPress Admin Dashboard without visiting your cPanel account.
In cPanel there used to be an option to clear “File Usage” cache, but now it is not available in most of the cPanel accounts.
Whenever your hosting account reaches or crosses its “File Usage” disk quota you have to request your web hosting to clear the “File Usage” cache, which is quite a hectic thing to contact them again-and-again.
Following topics will be covered in this tutorial:
- What Is File Usage Cache In cPanel?
- How To Clear cPanel File Usage Cache Directly From WordPress
01. What Is File Usage Cache In cPanel?
The “File Usage” refers to disk inodes or in other words they are the number of files uploaded to your web hosting account. Every Shared Hosting offers a limited disk quota for a single hosting account to make sure that server resources are not consumed by few websites.
The real problem occurs when your “File Usage” quota reaches its maximum limit. These could be the possible issues:
- You might not be able to upload new files.
- It effects the overall performance of your website.
- You might not be able to send/receive emails.
- You might not be able to install WordPress Plugins.
The best solution to decrease your “File Usage” is to delete the unnecessary files and emails from your web hosting account. Remove the inactive and unnecessary plugins from your website. Normally one inode is created for one file. When you delete a file you are actually deleting an inode.
Sometimes even after removing your emails or unnecessary files your “File Usage” disk quota crosses its limit. It happens because your “File Usage” cache contains spam or unnecessary files. To resolve this issue you have to clear the “File Usage” cache.
You can check “File Usage” on right side of your cPanel account under the “Statistics” section.
Below is the one such example of an overloaded cPanel File Usage.
Here “150,000” is the allocated disk quota or number of disk inodes for a cPanel account, and “186,183” are used disk inodes. The percentage is above 100% i.e 124.12%. It means that a website has exceeded its maximum File Usage disk quota.

02. How To Clear cPanel “File Usage” Cache
You must have a good understanding about What is cPanel File Usage Cache, now in this section you will learn how to clear cPanel File Usage directly from your WordPress Admin Dashboard using W3 Total Cache plugin.
First of all install “W3 Total Cache” plugin. It is one of the leading free WordPress performance-optimization plugin that speeds up your WordPress website on desktop and mobile devices.
- To install the plugin, go to “Plugins” from your WordPress dashboard-sidebar.
- Click “Add New”.
- Search for “W3 Total Cache” in the plugins search bar.
- Install and activate the W3 Total Cache plugin.

Follow the steps to access W3 Total Cache and clear cPanel File Usage.
- Click “Performance” from your WordPress dashboard sidebar.
- Click “Dashboard”.
- Click “empty all caches”.

- It will show you a message, “All caches successfully emptied“.

- Now login to your cPanel account to check the “File Usage” statistics.
- Here you can see that the “File Usage” has been reduced to 53.6% from 124.12%.
- Repeat the process of “clearing cache” from time-to-time at least 5 to 10 times a month.

So it was all about clearing cPanel File Usage Cache directly from your WordPress website. If you like this post then don’t forget to share with the other people. Share your feedback in the comments section below.
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Meer Basit is the founder of Meer’s World. He’s been running the show since launching the blog back in 2018. By background he is a computer scientist. Primarily, he creates content around blogging (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr), SEO, affiliate programs, earn-online, reviews, eCommerce, & technology. He has got years of professional experience in web programming, computer programming, databases, data warehousing, & transcription. In general, he likes traveling, gardening, creating TikToks(@iammeerbasit), watching movies, is a passionate cricketer, creative writer, and a GSD lover.

Akash Joshi
September 18, 2021 at 12:14 am
Thanks, Meer’s World you made my day. I was searching for this solution for so many months. It really works. Files Usage was troubling my website.
Meer Basit
September 18, 2021 at 12:18 am
You’re most welcome Akash!