When performing manual backups or restores from the WPEngine portal, a SQL dump file named mysql.sql is created. For large sites, this dump can consume significant storage— in our case, around 5–6 GB per dump—leading to storage usage alerts.

As a user, I believe this process shouldn’t consume our allocated server storage; instead, it should occur outside of the space included in our plan.

Additionally, the Smart Plugin Manager creates similar SQL dumps during every update. These backups accumulate over time, and I’ve had to manually clean them across multiple environments (Production, Staging, and Development) for 3 sites, which at one point resulted in over 9+ GB of storage usage. This has repeatedly triggered WPEngine’s storage usage alerts.

Suggestion for the WPEngine team:

It would be highly beneficial if an automated process were implemented to automatically delete these SQL dumps after a successful backup or update. This would ensure they don’t contribute to the allocated storage in our hosting plan.

Releasing such an improvement would greatly reduce the need for manual cleanup across multiple sites and environments, saving time and preventing unnecessary storage alerts.