My host wants me to delete default email

[dcwoolsey]

Hello All,

I know what I'm looking for is here somewhere.........the question is where?
My default email account has filled up with way to much junk.
Here is what my host says:

"Hello,
There still exists mails as below in your main default email account, dw and profits email accounts :
=======================================================================
1> Default email account :
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/new]# ls -l | wc -l
26136
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/new]# du -sh .
282M .
2> dw email account :
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/postcarddr.com/dw/new]# ls -l | wc -l
176
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/postcarddr.com/dw/new]# du -sh .
1.2M .
3> profits email account :
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/postcarddr.com/profits/new]# ls -l | wc -l
1916
[email protected] [/home/xxxxxx/mail/postcarddr.com/profits/new]# du -sh .
17M .
=======================================================================
Please check at your end and delete the unnecessary mails from those email accounts(especially the default email account).Please get back to us accordingly."

I'm looking for a video to watch or some step by step directions.
I found "deleting existing files" in the cpanel manual but that doesn't really help me.

Please Adise I'm lost,
Dave

 

[paulm]

I would ask them to delete it if you don't have SSH access it is much easier. I guess the first question I would ask is why the heck do they care how many emails you have if you are within your diskspace quota?

 

[markfrompf]

Yeah, that's a good question. It shouldn't matter to them.

 

[jayh38]

Exactly. You are renting their space. The only reason I could see is they may
be oversold and trying to recover extra space. I would find a new host before
it starts going down hill.

You have the right to use all the email room your allocated space will hold.

 

[markfrompf]

Yeah, a new host is an excellent start.
(Please note my signature.)

 

[jenlepp]

There are lots of reasons that a host will do this - *I* do this and I don't have any server using more than 20% of the space available for the home partition. I'll contact users to clean out their spam when their email quota fills up and the mail queue starts filling up with bounces, when their email space is threatening to fill up all their space, then filling the queue with bounces, etc.

It simply keeps the server running smoothly, and keeps my customers from having a suprise bill because their storage has to be upgraded to accomodate spam. I could do it the other way, but frankly, they seem to prefer a friendly email to a higher bill.

Assuming the host is going downhill based on the post is making some serious judgments regarding facts that the guy never even touches on. Being proactive in informing users that their disk space is being overrun by spam avoids the panicky help desk tickets that start:

" OMIGODS! I can't get my MAIL!! Cpanel says I have NO SPACE LEFT!!!! I only have three pages and a picture of MY DOG!!!!! FIX IT!!!!!!! "

Or the "Why are people who emailing me getting told that mail to me is timing out! PLease fix this!"

Which I used to get, somewhat regularly. Now I don't. I like it better when I don't get them, hence the pro-active stance.

 

[markfrompf]

So that means you're sending your customers un-necessary emails, when keeping track of their disk space is the customer's responsibility. :p

But maybe your customers like reminders like that. It seems that most of mine don't like un-necessary emails from my staff or me.

 

[elliotcooper]

dcwoolsey, the reason that mail is building up in your mail account is that your mail software (Outlook, Thunderbird etc) is configured to download your new mail but leave a copy on the mail server. Hence, the reason that it is filling up.

The easiest way for you to get rid of the mail on the mail server is just to set your mail software to remove mail from the server once you have collected it. This will be a setting somewhere in your Preferences/Options etc.

Once you have told your mail software to removed collected mail you just need to collect your mail one more time and it should clear out mail account for you.

 

[SageBrian]

So that means you're sending your customers un-necessary emails, when keeping track of their disk space is the customer's responsibility. :p

But maybe your customers like reminders like that. It seems that most of mine don't like un-necessary emails from my staff or me.

It helps to know your customers' ability. Whether it's their responsibility or not means nothing to a non-geek who barely knows how to click on send/receive.

Most of my customers don't even know about the cpanel. Even when they've been told, they might login once, and then never remember it exists. Remember that not everyone is a server admin, or even a web geek, logging in and checking settings.

Being pro-active, when you can, for those non-tech customers, benefits both the customer and yourself. And, don't forget the "I told you so" factor when they don't follow your guidance, and start having delivery issues.


Brian

 

[rpmws]

There are lots of reasons that a host will do this - *I* do this and I don't have any server using more than 20% of the space available for the home partition. I'll contact users to clean out their spam when their email quota fills up and the mail queue starts filling up with bounces, when their email space is threatening to fill up all their space, then filling the queue with bounces, etc.

It simply keeps the server running smoothly, and keeps my customers from having a suprise bill because their storage has to be upgraded to accomodate spam. I could do it the other way, but frankly, they seem to prefer a friendly email to a higher bill.

Assuming the host is going downhill based on the post is making some serious judgments regarding facts that the guy never even touches on. Being proactive in informing users that their disk space is being overrun by spam avoids the panicky help desk tickets that start:

" OMIGODS! I can't get my MAIL!! Cpanel says I have NO SPACE LEFT!!!! I only have three pages and a picture of MY DOG!!!!! FIX IT!!!!!!! "

Or the "Why are people who emailing me getting told that mail to me is timing out! PLease fix this!"

Which I used to get, somewhat regularly. Now I don't. I like it better when I don't get them, hence the pro-active stance.

This is my position as well. I have been hosting since 97' and can tell you that I am more likely to loose a customer when I do NOT send them a personal email warning them about a box or two that is full. When I look a the date stamps on a mail box folder and they are 2003 and there are NO maillog entries for that user EVER going back months and months ..and they have 300 emaisl in queue becuase they are over quota ..I think they appreachate me letting them know. Just letting legit emails die becuase they are overquota on an account or the default box has been bombed and is full ..it simply not being a extra responsible host. Believe it or not people appreachate personal help. They do NOT want to hear "it's your problem" when they let their accounts go over quota. That's how you will loose a client. Besides ..who wants to see stale emails in queue get deleted becuase they can't deliver to a customer? that's just wrong if you can help them prevent it.