Essential directories for the hosting service to work

A cPanel account already contains folders and configuration files before you upload your website. The fact that you didn't create them doesn't mean they are empty or that you can remove them.

Deleting a service folder can break email or the website and force you to recover data from a backup.

The main ones include:

• etc, stores the configuration, encrypted passwords and quotas of the email accounts.
• mail, contains the folder structure and the messages stored in the different email accounts.
• logs, access logs: monthly compressed files that store the website's raw access logs. Before removing old logs, check whether you need them to analyse an incident or keep a history, and save a copy outside the hosting.
• public_html, the directory where the files of an account's primary domain are stored.
• public_ftp, a directory reserved for anonymous FTP access when this feature is enabled; it isn't the general directory for FTP sub-accounts.
• ssl, SSL certificates, essential for secure https access to work.
• access-logs, a symbolic link to the real-time access log.
• softaculous_backups, backups of your apps made from the Softaculous auto-installer. It isn't a system directory, but it does contain your data; we recommend managing and deleting these backups from the Softaculous interface itself.
• .hostsuar, .cuarentena-hostsuar and .rastreo-hostsuar, hidden folders created by our tools. Don't delete them without asking us first.

As well as these directories, if you turn on showing hidden files and directories, you'll see content that starts with a dot, such as .cpanel, .ssh, .trash, .htaccess or .env. They don't all do the same thing, but deleting them in bulk can wipe configuration, credentials, website rules or the trash. Identify each item before removing it.

Before you clean up

Check what is using space and act on content you have identified. Don't delete a whole folder based only on its name: it may contain data from several websites or mailboxes.

Moving files to the trash doesn't free up their quota until you empty it. If you've deleted something by mistake, stop the clean-up, check the trash and the available backups before creating new content with the same name.