Free Up Disk Space

How the Limit Works

Each instance has a storage budget set by your plan. Lite includes 10 GB; Pro includes 40 GB. The number measured is the size of ~/.openclaw inside the container — that is your workspace, memory, agents, plugins, and any files the bot has created or downloaded.

When the total goes over the limit, the bot is automatically paused to protect the host. It stays paused until usage drops below the limit or you upgrade.

What Counts Toward Storage

• Workspace — anything the bot has saved, downloaded, or generated under ~/.openclaw/workspace. This is usually the largest contributor.
• Memory — long-term notes the bot keeps about you and your work. Small (typically under 1 GB) and worth preserving.
• Agents — installed agents and their state. Small unless you have installed many.
• Skills and plugins — usually negligible, but third-party skills can pull in large dependencies.
• Logs and config backups — auto-rotated; small but accumulate over time.

The Usual Suspects

Most over-quota cases come from one of these patterns:

• Image-generation tools (ComfyUI, Stable Diffusion, Flux) installed inside the workspace, with one or more model checkpoints. A single SDXL checkpoint is around 6.5 GB; a Stable Diffusion 1.5 model is around 4 GB.
• Tarballs the bot or you created for backup purposes (backup.tar.gz, workspace_backup_*.tar.gz) that were never deleted afterward.
• Datasets, scraped websites, downloaded videos, or large training logs left in the workspace.
• node_modules from a project the bot was helping you build, which can be several GB.

How to Free Space While the Bot Is Paused

While the bot is in DISK_EXCEEDED state, the container is stopped, so the bot cannot run commands or delete files itself. You have two options:

1. Ask support to do the cleanup for you. Email [email protected] with the folders or files you want removed (for example: ComfyUI models, downloaded tarballs, a specific dataset directory). The team can run the deletion against your stopped container without losing your memory, agents, or credentials.
2. Upgrade to Pro. Pro raises the limit to 40 GB. The bot resumes immediately after the upgrade — no cleanup needed. Existing recurring Lite subscriptions are upgraded prorated, so you only pay the difference for the rest of the current period.

Once the total usage is below your plan limit, the bot resumes automatically on the next health check (within ~2 minutes).

Preventing It Next Time

Once your bot is running again, you can keep usage from spiking by asking it to clean up periodically. In a chat with the bot, send something like:

Show me the 10 largest files and folders in /home/node/.openclaw,
sorted by size. Do not delete anything — just list them.

Then ask it to remove what you no longer need. This only works while the bot is healthy and running.

Safe to Delete

• Image-generation model files in workspace/ComfyUI/models/ (you can always re-download them later).
• Tarballs and zip archives the bot created (*.tar.gz, *.zip) under workspace/.
• node_modules directories from past coding projects.
• Datasets, scraped pages, downloaded videos, or test outputs you no longer need.
• Old log files and crash dumps under workspace/.

Do Not Delete

• ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json — your bot configuration. Removing it forces a re-pair on every channel.
• ~/.openclaw/credentials/ — channel auth tokens. Removing this forces you to reconnect Telegram, Discord, etc.
• ~/.openclaw/memory/ — long-term memory. The bot will lose what it knows about you.
• ~/.openclaw/agents/ — installed agents and their state.

Or: Upgrade to Pro

If your bot has a legitimate need for the space — running ComfyUI, hosting a large dataset, building a sizable project — Pro raises the limit to 40 GB and includes 3 instances and 10 credits per month for $20/mo. Upgrading from a recurring Lite subscription is prorated, so you only pay the difference for the rest of the current period.

Compare plans for full feature differences.

Still Stuck?

Email [email protected] with the bot name (you can copy it from your Dashboard) and what you would like deleted. Most cleanup requests are handled within a few hours.