Overview
This article describes how to adjust the email storage limit on your mail server.
Storage limits
When you create a new email, you have the option to limit the total disk usage. By default, this is set to 1000 MB (1 GB). If you set a limit, raise it if you expect to save a lot of mail and leave it on DreamHost's servers. The maximum disk space is 25GB, which can be used per email address.
Recommended storage limits
Total disk usage of 1000 MB (1 GB) is usually a good amount for regular mail, but when it comes to HTML mail and attachments, you'll quickly reach that limit, which causes errors until it's changed.
If you need more space
If an email account reaches or exceeds its disk limit, it displays errors and bounces incoming messages. To get it working again, you'll need to increase or remove the disk limit.
Adjusting disk usage
Users with paid email plans are not able to see the Disk Usage slider.
To adjust disk usage for email messages:
- Navigate to the Manage Email page.
- Locate an email address you wish to adjust.
- To the right of that address, click the Manage button.
- Scroll down to the Disk Usage section and adjust the slider to the desired usage limit.
- Click the Save Changes button to save your changes.
When changing/removing disk limits (quotas), it will take about 15 minutes for the changes to be pushed to the live servers.
Backing up email messages
When you are reducing your email's disk usage, you may have old messages that you want to save. DreamHost recommends that you back up these messages locally on your computer.
There are multiple backup methods, but the easiest option is exporting the messages via your email client. See this article to learn more about how to back up your email messages.