A common problem that many email users may face without even knowing it is running out of email disk space. Many users panic when they stop receiving email, and automatically assume there is something wrong at their mail provider’s end which may not be the case. Many email hosting providers still put quota restrictions on email because let’s face it, disk storage systems still incur a business cost. You can’t compare other email systems to say, Gmail, because frankly, Google has more money and resources to throw at the problem which makes it seem like you have an unlimited amount of email disk space. In the earlier days of computing, running out of disk space was more prevalent. Usually, a message is sent to the postmaster account of a domain notifying the mail administrator of the shortage allowing them to pinpoint the problem, however, sometimes, these system notifications won’t reach them. Why? Because I’ve seen users who sometimes use the postmaster account like a regular email account or change the Primary Domain Administrator (effectively postmaster) to one of their regular email accounts. When the system tries to send a notification about a quota limit being reached, it bounces because it is full. Fortunately, for those who have administrative access to manage email accounts in their domain, there is a reporting tool they can use to help them identify the problem quickly if the aforementioned scenario occurs. To access this report:
- Log into SmarterMail with a Primary Domain Administrator account (usually postmaster)
- Click on the Reports icon (looks like 3 bars) on the menu to your left.
- Expand the Domain Summary Reports folder.
- Expand the Traffic Reports folder.
- Click on Disk Usage.
And this is how you read the report. The number under Total Disk actually represents how much disk space the email account is currently using. The Max Disk column represents the quota limit for the account. The Total in bold under the Total Disk column represents the total amount of space used in the domain. This Total is usually the one you need to pay attention to because it’s the one your email hosting provider limits, but you should contact your email hosting provider to verify if they are provisioning your email based on the total amount for the domain or for each email account. You now have several options to resolve the problem:
1) You can delete your email messages within SmarterMail to free up space or setup a POP3 email client program to download your messages to remove them off the server.
2) You can purchase more email disk space if your hosting provider offers that service.
3) If you’re not actually out of email disk space and have just hit a quota, then you can increase the quota limit within SmarterMail.