Move cPanel addon domain to its own account

In this guide I'll walk over the steps required for taking a cPanel addon domain from one cPanel account and moving it into another.

In this example I have the primary cPanel user userna5 with the Primary domain of MainDomain.com and an Addon domain of AddonDomain.com.

I will be moving the AddonDomain.com website to a different cPanel account userna6 with the Primary domain of MainDomain2.com.

Backup cPanel Addon domain from main account

The first thing you'll want to do is download all of the files and any databases for the Addon domain that you're moving into a new cPanel account.

1. Connect with FTP with userna5 or the cPanel account that has the Addon domain you'd like to move.

2. Create a local folder in the left-pane of your FTP client for your AddonDomain.com files by Right-clicking and selecting Create Directory.

   Navigate into that local folder in the left-pane you just created, then you'll want to create a etc, mail, and public_html folder inside it to store files from the server.

3. In the right-pane of your FTP client, navigate into the etc directory, locate the AddonDomain.com folder, then drag that into the left-pane into the local etc directory you created.

   Do the same thing for the mail directory, as well as public_html

4. Now you should have all the physical files that make up your AddonDomain.com website, but if you installed a CMS like WordPress on this site you'll need to complete one more step by downloading a backup of your MySQL database.

   Login to cPanel, then under the Files section, click on Backups.

   Under the Download a MySQL Database Backup section, click on the AddonDomain.com site's MySQL database, in my case it's named userna5_wp2.

Restore cPanel Addon domain to secondary account

Now that you've backed up your Addon domain locally to your own computer, you can now start adding this website to the secondary cPanel account you'd like that website moved to.

1. Connect with FTP with userna6 or the cPanel account that you'd like to move the Addon domain to.

2. Navigate in both the left and right-pane in your FTP client to the etc folder, then drag your AddonDomain.com folder from the left to the right.

   Follow the same process for the mail and public_html directories.

3. Login to cPanel as the userna6 or the new cPanel user.

   Under the Files section, click on File Manager, select Document Root for and then select AddonDomain.com from the drop-down and click on Go.

   In this example it was a WordPress website, so you would need to right-click on the wp-config.php file and you should see this section of code:

   define('DB_NAME', 'userna5_wp2');
   
   /** MySQL database username */
   define('DB_USER', 'userna5_wp2');
   
   /** MySQL database password */
   define('DB_PASSWORD', '.P9cS[6q5b');

   Replace the instance of userna5 with the new cPanel username of userna6:

   define('DB_NAME', 'userna6_wp2');
   
   /** MySQL database username */
   define('DB_USER', 'userna6_wp2');
   
   /** MySQL database password */
   define('DB_PASSWORD', '.P9cS[6q5b');

4. Now you'll want to create a MySQL database with the name of the database, in this case wp2

   While in the MySQL section in cPanel, also add a new MySQL user of wp2 with the password mentioned in your WordPress config file, in my case .P9cS[6q5b

   Under the Add User To Database section, select the database and user you just created then click on Add.

   Place a check by ALL PRIVILEGES, then click Make Changes.

   Now finally go import your MySQL database in phpMyAdmin to complete the website migration process. In my case my MySQL backup I created earlier was called userna5_wp2.sql.gz.

5. Now comes the scary part in a website move process, these next steps will require you to take your Addon domain site down from the original cPanel account before you can add it to your new cPanel account.

   You need to keep in mind that if your second cPanel account is on a completely different server and IP then DNS propagation time will apply, and you might not have access to your site for a few hours unless you modify your hosts file to point the AddonDomain.com site to the new server for your own personal computer while awaiting the DNS records to finish propagating.

   These DNS changes will also affect email deliverability as if someone trying to mail you still sees the old cPanel account's IP address your AddonDomain.com email accounts will no longer be on that server, so they might get a bounce-back stating the user doesn't exist on that server.

   Login to cPanel with the userna5 or the cPanel account you're removing the Addon domain from.

   Under the Domains section, click on Addon Domains then click on the Remove link beside your AddonDomain.com site.

   Click on Remove again to verify the removal of this addon domain from the old cPanel account.

6. Login to cPanel with the userna6 or the cPanel account you're adding the Addon domain to.

7. Under the Domains section, click on Addon Domains.

8. Fill out the New Domain Name field as AddonDomain.com or whatever your Addon domain is called.

   You should notice it fills out the Document Root field with the same location you uploaded the AddonDomain.com public_html files to earlier.

   You can change the Subdomain/FTP Username if you'd like, then fill out a Password for the account and click on Add Domain.

9. Visit your AddonDomain.com site again to ensure that everything got copied over correctly. If you are unable to connect to the site at all, or don't see any files at all, keep in mind DNS propagation might still be taking place and you might need to wait a bit longer.

You should now hopefully understand how you can take an Addon domain from one cPanel account and move it into another!