How To Prevent Web Hosting Storage Overages

Email accounts can use up a lot of storage space over time. If you receive large files such as spreadsheets, images, or video, these can use up storage space even faster.

• If you've set up your email program using the POP protocol, you can have emails automatically deleted from the server once they appear in your inbox on your device. Check the settings of your email program to ensure that the option to "Keep a copy of the email on the server" is turned off. Be aware that emails will then only be viewable from that one device, so if you need to access your emails from multiple devices, this method won't work for you and you'll need to manually delete old emails instead.
• If you've set up your email program using the IMAP protocol, you must manually move or delete emails off the server in order to save space. We recommend periodically archiving old emails by moving them to a local folder on your computer or device, which will delete them from the server.
  More information regarding POP and IMAP email settings

Gmail currently allows up to 15GB of storage with their free email accounts, and you'll still be able to use your business email address when communicating with customers. When using the method described below, Gmail will automatically check your business email account and download messages to your Gmail inbox on a regular basis. The messages will then be deleted from your web hosting account, saving you storage space. Since Gmail is web-based, you'll be able to access your emails from any computer or device connected to the internet.

These are the three steps described below. You may be able to skip some steps if you already have your business email account or Gmail account created.

1. Create your business email account
2. Create your Gmail account
3. Set up Gmail to use your business email address

1. Create your business email account by logging in to your hosting account at BannerView.com. (If you already have an email account set up, skip to #2)
   1. Log in to your hosting account at https://hosting.bannerview.com/hosting/
   2. Click the Manage Email icon, or if you have multiple hosting plans with us, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Hosting Overview section, locate the appropriate plan, and click Options > Manage Email.
   3. Click the Manage Mailboxes button, then click Add New Mailbox Account.
   4. Enter your desired User Name, Password and Verify Password. Alias can be left blank.
   5. Click Save. The new email account will be ready in 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Create a Gmail account at https://mail.google.com/. (If you already have a Gmail account, skip to #3)
3. Set up Gmail to send and receive email from your business email address.
   1. Import your contacts from your business email account. (If you don't have any contacts stored in your business email account, or if you just created your business email address in the previous steps, skip to B.)
      1. Log in to Gmail, click the gear icon and choose Settings.
      2. Click on the Accounts and Import tab.
      3. Click Import mail and contacts.
      4. In the popup window, enter your business email address and click Continue.
      5. Enter your business email account password.
      6. If the window says it could not identify your POP server, enter the following information:
         1. POP username: enter your full business email address.
         2. POP server: enter planname.bannerview.com, replacing planname with your web hosting account planname. (Your planname is usually the same as your BannerView.com username, unless you have multiple hosting plans with us) Confused? Watch this Video.
         3. Port: 995
         4. Use SSL - checked
      7. On the final screen, click Start import. (Importing contacts may take a few hours up to 2 days to complete.)
   2. Configure Gmail to use your business email address.
      1. Log in to Gmail, click the gear icon and choose Settings.
      2. Click on the Accounts and Import tab.
      3. Click Add a POP3 mail account you own.
      4. In the popup window, enter your business email address and click Next Step.
      5. Enter the following information:
         1. Username: enter your full business email address.
         2. Password: enter the password for your business email address
         3. POP Server: enter planname.bannerview.com, replacing planname with your web hosting account planname. (Your planname is usually the same as your BannerView.com username, unless you have multiple hosting plans with us) Confused? Watch this Video.
         4. Port: 995
         5. "Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server." - NOT checked.
         6. "Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail." - checked
         7. "Label incoming messages:" - checked, but not required. Using this option will add a label to any message that was received through your business email address so you can distinguish between those emails and emails that were sent directly to your @gmail.com address.
      6. Click Add Account.
      7. On the success screen, choose "Yes, I want to be able to send mail as [your email address]" and click Next Step.
      8. Enter your Name. The checkbox for "Treat as an alias" should be checked. Click Next Step.
      9. Enter the following information:
         1. SMTP Server: smtp.bannerview.com
         2. Port: 25
         3. Username: enter your full business email address
         4. Password: enter the password for your business email address
         5. Secured connection using TLS - checked
      10. Click Add Account.
      11. Gmail will send you a confirmation email. It will be sent to your business email address and should appear in your Gmail account within 5 or 10 minutes. Wait for that email to arrive in your Gmail inbox, click the confirmation link inside the email, and click the Confirm button on the page you are taken to.
      12. We recommend testing everything by having a friend or co-worker send you an email to your business email address. It should appear in your Gmail inbox. (Make sure to allow enough time for the email to appear. It can take several minutes or more.) Then reply to that email to make sure your customers will receive email from you as though it came from your business address. When you compose new emails in Gmail, you will have the option of setting the From address as either your Gmail address or your business email address.

If you send a large number of newsletters, or you send to big email lists, BannerMailer stores a large amount of statistical information related to each distribution. While these stats are extremely valuable in determining the success of your newsletter, you generally don't need these stats after a certain period of time.

BannerMailer has a preference setting called "Keep Archives and Stats" that will automatically delete stats data after a specified number of days. It can be located in BannerMailer > Preferences.

If you set this to 120 days, for example, any stats associated with a newsletter which was sent more than 120 days ago will be automatically deleted from the database to help save storage space. The archived newsletter content itself will not be deleted, but rather only the statistical data associated with it.

Before using this setting, be certain that you really want to delete old stats data because it cannot be recovered once deleted.

If you have a very high traffic website, the statistical data pertaining to website visitors can take up a lot of storage space over time. While vistor stats are an integral part of maintaining a successful website, these stats may lose their value after a year or more.

BannerOS has a preference setting called "Keep Visitor Data / Stats" that will automatically delete visitor stats data after a specified number of days. It can be located in BannerOS > Preferences > General.

If you set this to 730 days, for example, any stats associated with website visits that occurred more than 2 years ago will automatically be deleted to save storage space.

Before using this setting, be certain that you really want to delete old stats data because it cannot be recovered once deleted.