1. First, log into your cPanel account on your current server with the old hosting company.
2. Click on "Backup." Your cPanel account will have one of the following two themes:
3. Click on "Download a home directory Backup."
4. Click on each of your databases listed. Each link will provide you with a file download of your database.
The following directions explain how to download the email forwarder or filtering configuration files for each of the domains you are hosting from your cPanel account. Since these settings are not stored under your home directory, its necessary to download these settings separately.
5. Click on the links under "Download Aliases or Filters Backup."
Now that you've downloaded all the data for your entire account (with the exception of SSL certificates), the next step is to restore the data on the new server.
6. Log into your new hosting account with the new hosting company.
7. Again, click on the Backup icon.
8. Click on the "Browse" button under the "Restore a Home Directory Backup."
Locate the backup file you downloaded from the old server, and select it. Once you've done this, click on the "Upload" button.
There will be a period of time while the home directory backup is uploading to the new server. After the upload is completed, the following type of output will display letting you know which files were restored.
If the home directory backup is too large, the upload may fail. This is due to the fact that the webserver protocol (http) was not designed for file uploads. Optionally, you can download a large number of your files from the old server, delete them from the old server, and re-download another home directory backup to increase the chances of the upload working without error on the new server.
If you don't wish to do this, then you can instead resort to a cPanel Full Backup Transfer via FTP.
9. Use the "Restore a MySQL Database" option to restore each database backup that you downloaded from the old server.
The output for each database restore should look like so:
10. Use the "Restore an Alias/Filter" option to restore the email forwarding (aliases) and/or email filtering configuration.
The output should look similar to this, with less or more information displayed.
