Open Editor →

Storage Quotas

Understand how disk space is allocated, tracked, and enforced across different account tiers to maintain platform stability.

The Storage Hierarchy

Python Online manages user data through three distinct storage models, depending on your authentication and subscription status.

  • Guest Sandbox: Guest data is highly volatile. It is stored exclusively inside your browser's localStorage database. It does not permanently persist on our cloud servers, and is wiped if you clear your browser cache.
  • Free Account (100 MB): When you sign in, your data is securely transferred to our central cloud cluster. You are granted 100 MB of highly available NVMe storage across a maximum of 3 projects.
  • Pro Workstation (1 GB): Pro users are elevated to our Federated Storage Mesh. You receive 1024 MB (1 GB) of persistent disk space that spans seamlessly across your unlimited projects and distributed compute nodes.

How Usage is Calculated

Because Python Online grants you access to a true Linux file system, storage is not based on arbitrary database row counts. Instead, the backend physically calculates the size of your projects directories recursively.

What Counts Against Your Quota?

Your quota encompasses the total physical weight of your projects, including:

  • Source Code: Your Python scripts, HTML templates, and CSS files.
  • Data Assets: Any CSVs, JSON dumps, images, or SQLite databases you upload or generate via scripts.
  • Installed Libraries: The physical files located in your hidden .pypackages directory. Heavy libraries containing pre-compiled C-binaries (like Pandas or PyTorch) consume significantly more space than pure Python libraries.

We believe you shouldn't be penalized for how Python operates under the hood. Our disk calculator intelligently excludes system metadata. Python byte-code caches (__pycache__ folders) and internal execution shims (__po_shim.py) are ignored and do not count toward your limit.

Proactive Enforcement (The Safety Net)

Hitting the storage limit during a write operation can lead to corrupted files or half-installed packages. To prevent this, Python Online implements a proactive Pre-Flight Check.

1. File Creation & Saving

When you attempt to save a file or generate data via a script, the backend calculates the current size of your project plus the incoming byte size of the payload. If the total exceeds your quota, the operation is blocked entirely, throwing an HTTP 507 Insufficient Storage error, keeping your existing data perfectly safe.

2. Project Importing

If you attempt to upload a massive ZIP file or a large local folder structure, the frontend calculates the raw byte size of the payload before a single byte touches the network. If the import would exceed your tier limit, the upload is aborted cleanly, preventing a fragmented project structure.

3. Package Rollbacks

As detailed in the Package Management documentation, installing a library initiates an Atomic Rollback sequence if the post-installation size breaches your quota limit, automatically uninstalling the bloated package to return your project to a healthy state.

Monitoring Your Usage

You can monitor your storage consumption in real-time without leaving the IDE.

  1. Click your Project Name in the top header to open the Dashboard.
  2. Navigate to the Usage tab.
  3. Here, you will find a global visualization of your Storage Track, displaying exactly how many megabytes you have consumed across all projects relative to your tier's limit.

Additionally, the Projects tab displays the exact calculated size of each individual project next to its name, helping you identify which applications are hoarding space.