One of the limits we enforce an inode limit to ensure that websites run as best as they can.
What exactly is an inode and why is there a limit on it
Unix-esque systems (like MacOS and Linux) use inodes to store information about files and directories. Every file and directory on a computer has an inode. A file system has limited number of inodes it can store, and the more inodes are on a system, the longer it takes to look up files. It means that too many inodes on the server will slow it down. If you’re interested in learning more about them, check out this Wikipedia article.
TLDR: every file and directory on your hosting account is an inode.
In your control panel, inode counter shows the amount of files and directories situated in your website. Only the files and directories accessible through FTP and the file manager are counted.
What is gonna happen when I hit the inode limit
After hitting the inode limit the creation of any new files and directories will fail. Analogously features that require a file to be created/uploaded won’t work. But your website will keep working for the most part.
Should I be worried because I'm using a many inodes?
A big software suite can be quite large, and getting up to 40-60% inode usage is completely normal, you shouldn’t worry about that. But if you’re getting over 80% you should get a little concerned.
How do I decrease my inode usage?
Inodes are just files and directories, so it’s simpe: you just need to delete them.
Here’s a few ways you may create some space:
- If you have multiple domain names assigned your account you could try moving them to a different account on the same client area profile. Remember that you can only have 3 hosting accounts.
- Note that removing a domain from your account doesn’t automatically remove the files assigned to that domain. So remember to clear out the directories.
- Check if you don’t have any obsolete/unused code, themes or plugins.
- If you have a lot of images uploaded for an example. Think about uploading to a hosting service instead.
Note that the inode counter isn’t a live counter and it it’s sampled once per day. So you won’t see the change just after removing/adding a lot of files.