What is an inode
An inode is a data structure used to store all the information about the files in your hosting account, including emails, files, folders and everything you upload, create or store on the server.
The number of inodes indicates the number of files and folders you have. For example, your shared and reseller hosting only allows 150,000 files per cPanel account. This 150,000 is a "Soft Limit", i.e. you can still upload files after the limit is reached.
As for hosting accounts, the currently set limit is 250,000. While exceeding the limit violates our Terms of Service and may result in a possible suspension, shared hosting account holders shouldn't be too worried as most shared hosting account inode usage is still well below the limit.
On VPS accounts, the limit set is 1,000,000 inodes. In other words, you cannot upload files to the account once the threshold is reached. As for Dedicated servers, they do not have an inode limit. Its total inode usage depends on the server's file system.
How can I reduce my Inode usage?
To reduce inode counts, you just need to delete files or emails that you don't need anymore. Alternatively, you can also download emails to your local system.
Where can I check my Inode usage?
You can check your inode usage in your cPanel, here are the steps:
1) Login to cPanel with the URL as http://domainname.com/cpanel
2) Proceed to Home -> Statistics and -> File Usage
3) From there you can see the total usage of your Inode server.
Alternatively, you can contact our support team to check your Inode usage.
Finally, Inode's TOS violations also include (but are not limited to) continuing to publish and delete large numbers of files (e.g. 10,000+) without pre-approval.