If you are on a web server with limited capacities and not much free available disk space, you have several options to reduce your WordPress site’s size.
If you are going to clone your website with WP Staging, you can choose the options below to lower your file system’s size.
How to Free Up Disk Space on a WordPress Site
- Check if you can exclude a few of the yearly named folders under the directory
wp-content/uploads/YEARbefore cloning your site. If your WordPress site is ancient, you may have folders that contain old data that is not relevant any longer. On a staging site, not all old media files are needed. Especially not if you want to test new features, plugin updates, or only want to redesign your site. - Lower the setting “max file size limit” in WP Staging to 1 – 2 MB. That prevents copying big files, like backup ones or similar.
- If you have limited disk space, do not create more than one staging site.
- Delete unused old backup files on your system to get some more free space.
- Last but not least, you could check with your hosting provider if it’s possible to increase the available disk space. Sometimes this is possible for low extra costs.
Some general tips for keeping the used space low:
- Don’t upload video files directly to the media library. Embed them from YouTube or similar video service
- Don’t upload audio files directly to the media library and host them somewhere else like above.
- Don’t upload images with more than 250KB size.
- Try to reduce the size of pdf files if you have any.
- Delete all unnecessary plugins and themes
- Don’t install more than two themes: 1.) your active theme 2.) Default theme by WordPress
- Try to optimize images and use an image format like
webpimages.