www folder -identical to public_html - Can I Delete?

Roo's picture

She has: 840 posts

Joined: Apr 1999

Okay...I've only got like 10 MB of space left on my hosting server.

I upload all files to pubic_html.

There is another directoty named www that has all of the exact same files. It seems to be a backup or something.

Thing is this is doubling my disk usage! Can I safely delete the contents of the www folder? Can I delete the folder itself?

Roo

demonhale's picture

He has: 3,278 posts

Joined: May 2005

I guess No, coz basically the www folder is the public_html folder, they are one and the same and they occupy the same disk space; It does not double...

Roo's picture

She has: 840 posts

Joined: Apr 1999

But it's not in the public_html folder. They are two seperate things totally.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Ask your host about it - they'd be most likely to have the right answer Smiling

demonhale's picture

He has: 3,278 posts

Joined: May 2005

What I mean Roo is that your real folder is the public_html folder; the www folder functions more like a shortcut of the public_html folder... So it means they only occupy the same space... So if you upload a 3kb file in public_html folder then it still occupies a 3kb space even if it appears again on the www folder...

timjpriebe's picture

He has: 2,667 posts

Joined: Dec 2004

You see how the logo beside it is half folder and half data? That means it's not a real folder. If you click on it and open it, you are actually seeing the content of your public_html folder.

It absolutely does not double your disk usage. Trust me, those exist on all the sites I maintain.

And definitely DO NOT DELETE IT. That will likely mess your site up. Often servers point to the WWW folder, and not the PUBLIC_HTML folder, to actually serve your site to the Internet. Deleting it would mean that your site is no longer where the server thinks it is. So you would suddenly get a 404 error when trying to view your site.

Roo's picture

She has: 840 posts

Joined: Apr 1999

I found the problem. When I enabled Span Assain I created two e-mail accounts. I have it set so that my mail is forwarded to my personal isp e-mail account. There was over 125 MB of messages stored in mail folders.

I deleted those e-mail accounts and all is fine now...my disk usage is back to normal.

Totatlly a case if the problem existing between chair and keyboard.

Roo

timjpriebe's picture

He has: 2,667 posts

Joined: Dec 2004

Glad you got it all figured out! Yeah, way back in the day I had a catch-all email account set up and didn't realize it. Boy, that was eating up tons of disk space!

demonhale's picture

He has: 3,278 posts

Joined: May 2005

Yeah; but at least you didnt delete your www folder! I purge my mails every week...

Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.