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OverviewHow It WorksStep-by-Step InstructionsOption 1: Use WordPress Site Health ToolOption 2: Check via SSHOption 3: Check Database Size via phpMyAdmin (Optional)
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How to Check for Disk Space usage for your WordPress website?

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Overview

Understanding how your WordPress site uses disk space can help you stay within hosting limits, diagnose performance issues, and reduce unnecessary bloat. This guide walks you through how to identify what’s taking up storage on your site

How It Works

WordPress uses storage for core files, themes, plugins, media uploads, cache, and backups. Over time, these areas can accumulate clutter. By checking storage usage via SSH or WordPress's built-in tools, you can determine where optimizations may be needed.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Option 1: Use WordPress Site Health Tool

1. Open Site Health

  • Go to your WordPress Dashboard.

  • Navigate to:
    Tools > Site Health > Info tab.

2. Check File System Usage

  • Scroll to the Directories and Sizes section.

  • Here you’ll find the storage used by key directories:

    • wp-content

    • uploads

    • themes

    • plugins

    • database size

This provides a quick overview of which folders are using the most space.

Option 2: Check via SSH

1. Connect to Your Server

You can find the details to your SFTP/SSH by following this knowledge base.

2. Navigate to Your Site Directory

Navigate to your site's root directory. 

cd /htdocs

3. List Folder Sizes

Run the following command to see how much space each folder is using:

du -sh *

You’ll get output like:

12M    wp-admin
45M    wp-content
8M     wp-includes

To go deeper into the wp-content folder (where themes, plugins, and uploads live):

cd wp-content
du -sh *

This will show sizes for:

  • plugins/

  • themes/

  • uploads/

  • cache/ (if present)

  • Any other directories created by plugins

Option 3: Check Database Size via phpMyAdmin (Optional)

If you want to go a step further and check how much storage your database is using:

  1. Log in to the Database by following this Knowledgebase.

  2. Select your site’s database.

  3. You'll see a list of tables with their sizes listed in the “Size” column.

Pro Tip

  • Large Uploads? Consider compressing or optimizing images.

  • Unused Themes/Plugins? Delete them to free up space.

  • Backups in wp-content? Offload them to cloud storage if you find large .zip or .sql files. BionicWP does provide 3 layers of backups on the top plans as well.

  • Cache Buildup? Some caching plugins store temporary files in wp-content/cache. Safe to clear occasionally.

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