# Transferring Accounts

> Bring hosting accounts over from another server: live from cPanel/WHM with root or with one account's own login, from an uploaded archive, or from another CorePanel server through a backup.

Source: https://www.corepanel.net/docs/backups/transfers/
Last updated: 2026-10-02
Part of the CorePanel documentation — https://www.corepanel.net/docs

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A **transfer** brings an account from another server while that server is still running:
CorePanel connects to the source, pulls the account and recreates it here, with live
progress in the **Transfers** tab. Nothing has to be downloaded or copied by hand, and the
source is not suspended — what happens to it afterwards is your decision.

Moving an archive is the other way to bring an account over: the source makes a backup,
the file reaches this server, and it is restored or imported here. It works with any
source that can produce an archive, and does not need this server to reach the old one.

![The Transfers tab of Backup & Transfers: two choices at the top — "cPanel/WHM, with root" (your own server, or one whose root password you have; several accounts at once), selected, and "cPanel, with the account's login" (shared hosting: only the cPanel username and password of one account) — and below them the "Import account from cPanel" wizard on its first step, Connect, with fields for the server hostname or IP, the SSH port 22, the SSH username root and the SSH password, and a Connect button](https://www.corepanel.net/_astro/backup-transfers-dark.Cuuh5oT5.png)

## Which way, from which server

| Source | What you have | How | Covered in |
|---|---|---|---|
| **cPanel/WHM** | Root on the source server | Live, over SSH. One account or many at once, with an optional DNS cut-over at the end | [Live pull over SSH](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/cpanel-import#procedure--admin-panel-live-pull-over-ssh) |
| **cPanel**, shared hosting | Only one account's cPanel username and password | Live, over cPanel's own HTTPS port. One account at a time; a reseller can run it for their own customers | [With the account's own login](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/cpanel-import#procedure--admin-panel-with-the-accounts-own-login-no-root) |
| **cPanel** | A `cpmove-*.tar.gz` or a cPanel full backup | Upload it, then import it | [Uploading an archive](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/backups/uploading) |
| **Another CorePanel server** | Admin on both servers | A backup of the account, restored here — through a shared destination or an uploaded file | [Moving to another server](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/backups/moving) |

The three cPanel routes feed the same import engine, so what arrives and which passwords
survive are the same whichever you use. [Importing cPanel accounts](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/cpanel-import)
covers that engine in full: its scope, how passwords are preserved, the report, and what to
check after the import.

## Before you start

- **Review before it writes.** Every route ends in a review of what it is about to
  create, and lets you choose what happens when an account or domain already exists on
  this server. Read it: a domain that is already here is the usual collision.
- **Room on this server.** The account needs its full size here, on top of the free space
  the hosted sites already rely on.
- **DNS decides when the move is over.** Until the domains point here, the source keeps
  receiving mail and visitors. Only the live pull from cPanel/WHM can repoint them for
  you; in every other case it is a change you make at the source or the registrar.
- **The reverse road exists.** An account can leave CorePanel too:
  [Exporting for cPanel](https://www.corepanel.net/docs/backups/export-cpanel).