Mailbox Full: "552 Quota Exceeded" or "Mailbox Is Full" Print

What the error means

If people emailing you receive a bounce similar to:

552 5.2.2 <name@yourdomain.tld>: Mailbox size limit exceeded

or "user is over quota" or "mailbox is full," your email account has used up its allocated storage space and the server is rejecting new incoming mail until space is freed. Messages sent to you while the mailbox is full are not held for later, the sender gets a bounce and must resend once you have made space.

You may also notice warning emails from the server as you approach your limit, and some mail programs show a quota bar. If you saw those warnings and the mailbox filled up anyway, this article is your fix-it list.

Why mailboxes fill up

• Large attachments accumulating over years. A handful of emails with big attachments can outweigh thousands of ordinary messages.
• The Sent folder. Every attachment you have ever sent is stored there too, and it is the folder people forget to clean.
• Trash and Spam folders that never get emptied. Deleted mail still counts against your quota until the Trash is emptied.
• Using IMAP on multiple devices without ever archiving. IMAP keeps everything on the server, which is convenient, but it means the server carries your full history.

How to fix it

1. Log in to webmail. Fixing quota problems in webmail is more reliable than doing it from a phone or desktop program, because you are working directly on the server copy.
2. Empty the Trash and Spam folders first. This is the fastest win and often frees a surprising amount of space.
3. Sort your Inbox and Sent folders by size, and delete or download the largest messages. A dozen huge attachments usually matter more than ten thousand small emails.
4. Empty the Trash again after deleting, otherwise the space is not actually released.
5. Ask the senders of anything that bounced to resend once space is available, bounced messages do not arrive on their own.

Preventing it going forward

• Archive old mail locally. Most mail programs can move older messages to a local archive on your computer, which takes them off the server while keeping them searchable.
• Send links instead of attachments for large files, using a file sharing service, so neither your Sent folder nor the recipient's Inbox carries the weight.
• Set your Trash to empty automatically on exit or on a schedule if your mail program supports it.
• If you genuinely need the history on the server, contact us about increasing the mailbox quota on your hosting package rather than fighting the limit every few months.

Good to know

If your website and email are on the same hosting account, your mailboxes and your website share the account's overall disk space. A full disk affects more than one mailbox, it can stop all email on the account and cause problems for the website too. If several mailboxes on your domain hit problems at the same time, or webmail itself misbehaves, open a support ticket and we will check the account's overall disk usage for you.