GuideHow to migrate from cPanel to a new host

Last updated: 26 October 2026

Many web hosts use cPanel as their control panel. If yours does, moving to MariHost is simple: you share your cPanel login with us, and we move your websites, databases and email for you, free, as part of your plan. This guide shows you how to share your login safely, what we move, and how to switch without your site going offline. Your part takes about 10 minutes.

What we move when you migrate from cPanel

From your cPanel account we make one full backup, which holds everything in your hosting account, and import it into your MariHost account:

• your websites' files, including addon domains and subdomains
• your databases
• your email accounts, their passwords and the email in them, and your forwarders
• your SSL certificates, scheduled tasks (cron jobs) and FTP accounts

We move as many websites as your plan holds, free, in your first 30 days.

Ask for your free migration

Choose a plan and start your free trial or order it: Choosing a hosting plan helps. Then open a ticket in your client area at billing.marihost.com, under Support, and ask for your free migration. Tell us your domains, and that your current host uses cPanel.

Not a customer yet, with questions first? Ask through our contact form, but don't put any passwords in it.

Share your cPanel login safely

In your ticket, send us:

• the address you use to log in to cPanel, such as yourhost.com:2083 or cpanel.yourdomain.my (your current host's welcome email has it)
• your cPanel username and password

Send them only in a ticket in your client area, never by WhatsApp, email or our contact form: tickets stay inside your account. If your cPanel asks for a two-factor code when you log in, tell us in the ticket, and we'll agree a time to log in together.

We log in, make a full backup of your account and import it. Your old sites stay live the whole time, so your visitors don't notice anything. We check each website works on our servers, then tell you it's ready for you to check too.

When the move is done, change your cPanel password, or cancel the old hosting once you've switched (below).

What to set up again

A few cPanel extras don't come across, so set them up again in our control panel afterwards, if you used them:

• autoresponders (set up an out-of-office reply instead)
• catch-all email addresses
• calendars and contacts kept in cPanel's webmail
• password-protected folders
• custom error pages and visitor statistics

Your email addresses keep their passwords. After the switch, update the server settings in your mail apps: see IMAP and SMTP settings.

Switch to MariHost

When we've checked the copy, and you've had a look too:

1. Point your domain to MariHost, by changing its nameservers to ns1.maridns.com and ns2.maridns.com, or its DNS records. Our guide to pointing your domain to MariHost shows each step.
2. Check everything: your site loads with the padlock, your forms send, you can log in to WordPress, and your email sends and arrives.
3. Keep your old hosting for a week, then cancel it. Some networks take up to 48 hours to see the change, and it's a useful copy if anything was forgotten.

Don't add posts, products or orders on the old site after we've made the copy: they won't be on the new one. If you run a shop, agree the timing with us. Our guide to moving your site to MariHost has more on avoiding downtime and moving email.

Prefer to make the backup yourself?

If you'd rather not share your login, make a full account backup in cPanel and we'll move that instead:

1. In cPanel, open Backup in the Files section, then click Download a Full Account Backup.
2. Under Backup Destination, choose Home Directory. Type your email address to be told when it's ready, or choose Do not send email notification of backup completion.
3. Click Generate Backup. cPanel builds the file in the background: a few minutes for a small site, an hour or more for a large one.
4. When it's ready, go back to Download a Full Account Backup. Your file is under Backups Available for Download, named with "backup" and the date, ending in .tar.gz. Click it to download it.

Tell us in your ticket that you have the file, and we'll reply with how to send it to us.

If something's not right

We can't log in to your cPanel. Check the address, username and password by logging in yourself. Some hosts block logins from other countries or new addresses: ask your host to allow ours, or make the backup yourself as above.

The backup failed or never finished. Your account may be near its storage limit. Delete old files or backups in cPanel, or ask your host for more space.

There's no Backup in your cPanel. Some hosts switch it off. With your login, we can usually copy your sites another way: tell us in your ticket.

Your email stays with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Tell us, and we'll keep your MX records as they are, so your email keeps flowing.

Next steps

Haven't chosen a plan yet? Choosing a hosting plan helps, and every plan starts with a free 3-day trial.