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cPanel Email Quota Limit Exceeded – How to Fix it?

  author
Published By Jamie Kaler 
Rollins Duke
Approved By Rollins Duke
Published On January 23rd, 2026
Reading Time 7 Min Read

Facing difficulty from “cPanel Email Quota Limit Exceeded” issue? You can fix this error here. This problem occurs mainly due to having excessive emails in your mailbox. Whenever you try to send an email, this warning message will be displayed:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its

recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

[email protected]

Mailbox quota exceeded

For every webmail account including cPanel, there is a fixed size limit to store emails & messages. Generally, when a user opts for cPanel, the quota size is assigned too low.

The best way to deal with this problem is by deleting unnecessary emails. Another way is that you can also extract & delete the attachments from cPanel emails. Attachments occupy a lot of space.

The issue of “cPanel Email Quota Limit Exceeded” is one of the most common difficulties faced by many email users and owners who regularly host their respective account cPanel servers. Due to such issues the interface stops recovering or sending of brand new emails, which further interrupts the users daily business operations and communication.

Why Users Face “cPanel Disk Quota Exceeded” Issue?

  • Most cPanel accounts are created with a default setting of having a limit of between 250 to 500 MB which fills up shortly with large attachments.
  • PDF documents, images and video of high resolution, and attachments takes significant amount of space on users’ accounts.
  • Emails sent to trash or received in Spam will still consume a lot of space until they are removed from storage permanently, since they are overlooked by the majority of users.
  • Users’ emails are kept on the server rather than saving them on local storage if they’re using IMAP.
  • Since there is no auto cleanup configuration, outdated emails would still be occupying space unless configured.

Pro Tip: Before deletion of emails, it is recommended to take a backup of cPanel emails in local storage.

Manual Solution to Fix “cPanel Disk Quota Exceeded”

By following the below mentioned instructions users can seamlessly solve the problem using cPanel and webmail

1. Extend Mailbox Quota

  1. Open cPanel and login by entering your credentials.
  2. Navigate to the option “Email Accounts”.
  3. Browse for the email and tap on “Manage”.
  4. Further, go to the “Storage” option.
  5. Define a new value for the “Storage Space”.
  6. You can enter a specific number or select “Unlimited” if available.
  7. Finally, update the settings.

2. Manage cPanel Storage Space

  1. Log in to your cPanel account.
  2. Select the option “Email Disk Usage”.
  3. Go to “Manage” for a certain file or folder.
  4. Select the required filter (Time Frame).
  5. Finally, hit “Delete Permanently”.

Drawbacks of Using Manual Solutions

  • Deleting hundreds and thousands of emails one by one can be a hectic task for professionals to execute in less time.
  • Due to the processing and caching of multiple files simultaneously, cPanel often times does not have its immediate effect which further delays in updates.
  • Trying to delete files through Horde or Roundcube often causes the browser to have timeouts or crash from time to time causing the corruption of users’ files.
  • Emptying the storage does not always ensure an immediate redelivery of emails that failed to reach their destination.
  • Filters like “Email Disk Usage” consist of a high risk of deletion of files in large volume if entered wrong size or date.
  • Such methods require deleting the entire email body, including the attachments, resulting users lose their necessary attached files.

Automated Tool to Solve “cPanel Disk Quota Exceeded”

To conquer limitations provided by manual methods, it is highly recommended for users to take assistance from a guaranteed automated tool without any such risk of data loss through accidental deletion or specific errors.

Users can empty their cPanel mailboxes with an efficient tool like the advanced RecoveryTools EmailRaser software that is constructed to safely eliminate unnecessary files, emails, attachments, messages, outdated documents without putting in any extra effort.

This robust software utility not only helps users instantly fix “cPanel Email Limit Exceeded”, but also ensures to sustain and protect the integrity of the user’s data during the deletion process.

Modern Features of the Automated Tool

  • With the help of the tool’s advanced filter, users can selectively delete items, without stressing about removing the important ones.
  • Users can process thousands of emails, attachments, files, etc. and delete all of those documents simultaneously.
  • Seamlessly support the option of deleting emails from not just cPanel, but from huge webmail accounts like Gmail, WorkMail, EarthLink, GMX, IBM Verse, Rackspace, Horde, and the list goes on.
  • Provides an intuitive and user-friendly graphical interface, compatible on all the operating systems.
  • With simple executive steps, the software solution is perfectly suited for all kinds of users, whether they are from a technical or non-technical background.

Steps to Follow to Increase Disk Quota in cPanel

  1. Launch software & choose the IMAP Server option. Enter details of your cPanel account to start login.
  2. The application will list all emails of your cPanel account. Select them accordingly.
  3. Select the destination saving format. I like to recommend you select them as PST files.
  4. Setup cPanel to PST backup option in software panel like destination location, filter settings, etc.
  5. Click on the Backup button to start the process to save emails.

By following these above steps, a user will have their cPanel emails on the local disk. This backup of emails can be useful for future use.

To Conclude

Regardless of selecting any methods to fix “cPanel Quota Exceeded” issue, it is essential for users to backup important files in advance to avoid data loss when the time is crucial. For such case, use the Email Backup Wizard. This tool is perfect for situation like these, and can easily export data on users’ preferable drive for backup.

The above article fully explains the process of how to fix cPanel email quota exceeded issue. You should not be worried about the original components of the cPanel emails. Before emptying your Inbox, make sure you keep the emails saved in local storage.

Frequently Asked Queries by Users

Q1. What are the email notifications of Mailbox Disk Quota in cPanel?

cPanel mainly displays three types of warning according to the space occupied:

  1. Mailbox disk quota ‘warn’ percentage – 80%
  2. The Mailbox disk quota ‘critical’ percentage – 90%
  3. Mailbox disk quota ‘full’ percentage – 100%

In case, if you face any warning, it is recommended for you to take action accordingly. The best solution is to delete the unwanted emails from your mailbox.

Q2. Can I delete only the emails which I obtained 2 years ago?

Yes, the EmailRaser software has advanced filters settings option that will enable them to delete emails only before any specific date.

Q3. I want to clean all the emails from my Junk folder of cPanel. Is there any option available to do so?

Yes, the software will list all your mailbox folders in its panel. A user can choose only the required folders for cleaning up the mailbox.

Q4. Can I use your application on my Windows OS matching?

To fix cPanel emails mailbox quota limit exceed issue, you can do this task with this application. The cPanel Email Cleaner software is fully compatible with all the latest versions & editions of Microsoft Windows OS.