An FTP quota limits how much disk space a specific FTP account can fill up, which is useful when you're handing FTP access to a web developer, designer, or other third party and want to make sure they can't fill your entire hosting account with uploads. How you set this depends on which control panel you use, since cPanel and DirectAdmin handle FTP storage limits quite differently.
In cPanel
cPanel lets you set an individual disk quota on each FTP account, separate from your overall hosting account quota.
- Log in to cPanel and go to Files, then FTP Accounts.
- To set a quota when creating a new account, fill in the account details and enter a value in the Quota field (in MB), or leave it set to Unlimited. Click Create FTP Account when done.
- To change the quota on an account that already exists, scroll down to the FTP Accounts list at the bottom of the page and find the account.
- Click Change Quota next to that account.
- Enter the new limit in MB, or select Unlimited, then click Change Quota to save it.
An FTP account's quota can never exceed the total disk space allowed on your hosting plan. Setting individual quotas doesn't give you extra storage, it just divides up what you already have.
In DirectAdmin
DirectAdmin does not support a separate disk quota per FTP account. Every FTP account on a DirectAdmin hosting account shares the same underlying disk space as the main account, because they're all technically part of the same system user. There's no per-account Quota field to set in FTP Management.
If you need to limit how much space someone with FTP access can use in DirectAdmin, you have two practical options instead:
- Restrict the FTP account to a specific subdirectory so it can only affect files in that folder, then keep an eye on how large that folder grows.
- Monitor your account's overall disk usage regularly, since an over-quota FTP upload will eventually cause your whole hosting account to hit its limit rather than just that one FTP account.
See how to restrict an FTP account to a specific directory for the steps to limit where an account can upload files, even though it won't cap how much it can upload.