big difference in file size between what cPanel shows and actual dowloaded files
Hey! I need some help with understanding something related to the actual size of my website.
In cPanel, it shows that the size is around 26GB, but every backup I made by downloading the files via FTP is around 6-7GB on my computer. I compared all the files and they seem to be the same on the server and from my computer (eg: the same number of images, the same sizes ..)
Even FileZilla shows them like like on my computer. For example:
"../wp-content/uploads/2025/02" on my computer and in FileZilla shows 4.3GB , but in cPanel it shows 22GB
If I want to backup site using a plugin like All-in-One WP Migration, it creates a file in a size representative of what cPanel shows ...and I reach my 50GB limit and get an error course.
I'd like to understand why such a big difference between these.
Thank you!
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Hi,
It sounds like when you download the backup via FTP you're downloading a compressed backup. Backups generated in cPanel are compressed so they take up less space. You can often tell if a backups is compressed if the filename ends in a .tar.gz extension.
If your WordPress plugin backups are each consuming the same space as the data that they're backing up, it indicates that these backups are not compressed.
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Hi, it wouldhave been amazing to be just that :) Unfortunately, is not issue ... What I realized after is that in FileZilla, I'm seeing only a part of the images - it seems the correct size is the one the cPanel shows and that for each image, I have around 13 sizes saved:
image-11b-100x100.jpg
image-11b-1024x741.jpg
image-11b-1491x1080.jpg
image-11b-150x150.jpg
image-11b-1536x1112.jpg
image-11b-2048x1483.jpg
image-11b-25x18.jpg
image-11b-2880x1500.jpg
image-11b-300x217.jpg
image-11b-350x350.jpg
image-11b-768x556.jpg
image-11b-scaled.jpg
image-11b.jpg
I have no idea how it came to this, if this is because of the smush...or why they don't show in FileZilla, WinSCP or other FTP client0 -
I believe you're hitting the FTP limit on the server. If you look at your first image it shows 9998 files. The FTP software is pre-configured to have a limit of 10,000 things that it can show at one time. You would need to adjust that setting here and then you'll be able to see all the files in FTP, which will in turn allow you to download them all:
If you only have cPanel access and not root access to the server you won't be able to make this change and you'll need to contact your host.
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This is the only explanation in days that makes total sense! Thank you so much for it!
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You're very welcome!
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