How to auto delete Emails on cPanel?

Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: cPanel & WHM 138 (Jupiter theme)

cPanel mailboxes do not delete old messages on their own. You can delete old mail once, or set a cron job that does it regularly.

Delete old mail once

1. Log in to cPanel (for example at https://yourdomain.com:2083, or from the Ucartz client area).
2. Open Email › Email Disk Usage and choose the account.
3. Click Manage next to the folder (for example INBOX or Trash).
4. Choose 1 year old or more, or Custom query… for another date, for example BEFORE 01-Jan-2026.
5. Click Delete Permanently.

Delete old mail automatically

Mail is stored as one file per message in /home/USER/mail/DOMAIN/MAILBOX/. A daily cron job (Advanced › Cron Jobs) can remove messages older than, for example, 30 days from the inbox:

find /home/USER/mail/example.com/info/cur /home/USER/mail/example.com/info/new -type f -mtime +30 -delete

Replace USER, example.com and info with your cPanel username, domain and mailbox. Other folders are in subfolders whose names start with a dot, such as .Trash.

Note: Deleted messages cannot be recovered. Run the find command without -delete first to list what would be removed. The mailbox size shown in cPanel updates after the next quota recalculation.