How do I move my site to another host?

What has to move

A Joomla site is two things: the files and the database. Both have to move, and configuration.php has to point to the new database. A backup tool does all three for you.

With Akeeba Backup (easiest)

1. Install Akeeba Backup on the old site, click Backup Now, and download the .jpa file.
2. On the new host, create an empty database and database user.
3. Upload the .jpa file and kickstart.php to the new site folder.
4. Open example.com/kickstart.php in your browser, extract the backup, and enter the new database details when asked.
5. Finish the restore, remove the installation folder when prompted, and test the site (you can test before changing DNS by editing your computer's hosts file).
6. Point your domain to the new host.

By hand

1. Copy all files with FTP/SFTP, and export the database with phpMyAdmin.
2. Import the database on the new host.
3. In configuration.php, update host, user, password, db and dbprefix, and check log_path and tmp_path.

Good to know

• Check that the new host meets Joomla's requirements (PHP version!) before you move.
• Restore into an empty folder and database, never on top of another site.