How to Restore your WordPress Database
The easy and secure way, using phpMyAdmin. A good backup copy of your database can be Restored simply, even if your current database has been corrupted!
Required for phpMyAdmin Restore of WordPress database
- Hosting Control Panel access, like cPanel or Plesk, including username and password – obtained from hosting admin.
- Backup of WordPress Database Zip file
Always have a Backup!
How to backup? Click the link below
Once you have a backup Zip file of your database, and access to your hosting Control Panel – ready to go!
Using phpMyAdmin to Restore WordPress Database
- Go Login to your Control Panel
- Scroll menus for a reference to Databases – Click on phpMyAdmin link
- phpMyAdmin homepage – Top left corner shows Database names, WordPress Database ends in “_wrdp1″ or similar. Click on the database name you would like to Restore to, see picture below. If there is no database intact, Create one, or Install WordPress, then return. Click on the database name you would like to Restore to.
The next screen appears, showing current database with tables revealed.
On the same page, Scroll down
Click Check All to select all tables – these will be trashed, to make way for the backup, which will slide into an empty database!
Select [Drop] to drop all the tables – When prompted, Click YES to complete.
You will now have an empty database called whatever_wrdp1
Click Import on the top menu, to upload your WordPress Database Backup
The Import screen shows next
Click [Browse] button to Select your backup Zip file on your computer.
Click [Go] button to upload – Restore your good database.
You are done. Congratulations, your WordPress Database is Restored!
Additional Information:
Restoring Your Database From Backup – WordPress Codex
great tutorial there thanks, im trying to restore my wordpress database but the problem is i dont know which database is which, they are named wrdp1,wrdp2,wrdp3 etc so i dont know what is what because i have several domains, is there any way of telling what database is from which domain? Thanks
Hi Alan, thanks for your comment. I’m sure others must be wondering the same thing. As I had difficulty showing images in this comment, I created a post for your answer.
How to identify a domain’s WordPress database
Thanks a lot! I am just learning Information.
Php and this was very easy to follow and helped a lot.
You really took time to explain every little bit.
Thanks again…
Thanks for the screenshots – they really help with better understanding.
I followed the directions like you said but I instead got an error message and now I’ve lost everything….I can’t even get into my wordpress panel now. I don’t understand why this didn’t work but I am so screwed now!
Hi Angela, sad to hear. If you have a backup copy of database, just try again through cPanel of your host using phpMyAdmin.
When accessing your site, google gave me the following response:
The methods I outlined in the article are the standard way to go about this, just follow the steps again, it should work. If your database refuses to upload properly, check your browser and connection settings, sometimes another browser may work better – try Google Chrome. Also check to make sure your database backup zip file is complete – open the zip and extract the sql file inside, open that file in text editor, then check it is complete: starts with database info at top, and ends at bottom with all user details. If this file looks whole, then you should eventually be able to get it uploaded.
Let me know how you go.
George
Thank for responding George. I decided to get my web host to restore my site b/c I was too afraid of doing permanent damage so I have it back now. Thank you for trying to help me get it back. Sometimes instructions can work a million times and then not work one freak time. I don’t blame you it. It just didn’t work for me. Thanks
Thank you that worked great