Email quota: Not enough disk space, how can I fix it?

For anyone has INBOX quota issue, follow these steps to archive/move the entire INBOX to their $home/mail folder so they can deal with it later.  The INBOX default quota is 1Gb and the $home default quota is 10Gb.

  1. Quit all of their email clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Webmail etc.)
  2. Use VPN if user is working outside UBC. Login be.stat.ubc.ca using ssh username@stat.ubc.ca
  3. We have 2 separate quotas: one for user's $home directory and the other quota is for /var/mail/username (Inbox)
    After ssh login, type the below command after the $ sign prompt in  red text
    Check inbox quota:
    Assume user name is daniel:
    $ ls -lh /var/mail/daniel
    -rw-------  1 daniel  faculty  1022M Feb 7 15:29 /var/mail/daniel
    The Inbox is 1.2G, over quota of 1G

    Make sure user has enough $home quota:
    $ pwd
    /home/staff/username

    $ du –h .
    1.0M  ./mail/blah1
    112K  ./mail/blah2
    196K  ./mail/blah3
    200K  ./mail/blah4
    1010M ./mail
    1010M .

    This user only uses 1Gb disk for $home and most of the data are in the mail folder so they are OK to do the next step archiving (move) the Inbox. 
  4. Move their INBOX, it will take awhile so be patient. Assume the current date is Jan 23, 2023:
    $ mv /var/mail/username mail/Inbox-Jan23-2023
    The Inbox should be empty once you move it to Inbox-Jan23-2023. It will NOT show in your email client on the left pane until you do the next step.
  5. Start their email client and subscribe to the new "Inbox-Jan23-2023" and check it to make sure they can see it.
    For Thunderbird How to: click here
    For Outlook How to: click here
FAQ Category
Email