Back up and restore your DirectAdmin account

DirectAdmin lets every user create their own backups of websites, email, databases and settings, and restore them later. Having your own copy is useful before big changes and as an extra layer next to your host's server backups. This guide covers the user-level backup tool.

Before you start

• Enough free disk quota: a backup is stored in your account until you delete it, and can be as large as your site.
• The backup feature enabled in your package.

Create a backup

1. Log in to DirectAdmin.
2. Go to Advanced Features → Create/Restore Backups.
3. On the Create Backup tab, tick what to include:
   • Website Data – domains directory (files), subdomain lists, Ftp accounts and settings.
   • E-Mail – accounts, email data (messages), forwarders, autoresponders, vacation messages and filters.
   • Databases – all MySQL databases with their users.
   • Other – cron jobs, DNS, SSL certificates and more.
4. Click Create Backup.

DirectAdmin builds the backup in the background and sends a message to your DirectAdmin Message System (and email, if configured) when it is ready. Large accounts take a while.

Download the backup

1. Open System Info & Files → File Manager.
2. Go to the backups folder in your home directory.
3. Download the file named like backup-Nov-13-2026-1.tar.zst or .tar.gz.
4. Store it somewhere off the server, then delete it from backups to free quota.

Restore a backup

1. Upload the backup file to the backups folder if it is not there.
2. Go to Advanced Features → Create/Restore Backups and open the Restore Backup tab.
3. Select the backup file and click Select Restore Options.
4. Tick only what you want to restore, for example only Databases or only E-Mail Data.
5. Click Restore Selected Items.

Schedule backups

Some hosts allow users to schedule backups via the Cron Backup option in the same screen. If it is available, choose the items, the schedule and optionally an FTP destination for off-site storage. If not, create a manual backup before risky changes and rely on your host's daily backups for the rest.

Restore a single file

For one file, it is often quicker to extract the backup locally (7-Zip or tar opens .tar.gz and newer tools open .tar.zst), find the file under domains/example.com/public_html and upload it with the File Manager.

Troubleshooting

• Backup never finishes: you may be over quota. Free space and try again, or exclude email data.
• Restore fails on databases: database names in the backup use your user prefix; restoring into a different user account must be done by the reseller or admin.
• Backup file not listed in Restore: it must be in ~/backups and named like the generated files.

Next steps

• Admin backups and server transfers in DirectAdmin.
• Export databases in DirectAdmin.
• Use the DirectAdmin File Manager.