How to Upload a Database That’s Larger Than 50MB

When migrating your site from another server to ours or if you are restoring a large website backup, you may need to upload or import a MySQL database that is larger than 50MB. Currently, all our shared servers have a limit of 50MB for the database upload in cPanel PhpMyAdmin. This is a global setting on the server that cannot be changed.

You can make a work around to get your database uploaded from your cPanel without contacting support. Softaculous has the ability to install PhpMyAdmin on a subdomain on your account. Installing PhpMyAdmin on a subdomain will allow you to change the php.ini settings that restrict the default PhpMyAdmin from uploading large databases. The following steps will explain how to do this.

Installing a PhpMyAdmin through Softaculous

All shared accounts have the ability to use Softaculous. PhpMyAdmin is available in your Softaculous program for install. The following will show you how to install it.

  1. Login into your cPanel.
  2. Create a subdomain for your PhpMyAdmin.
  3. Go to Software and click Softaculous Apps Installer.
  4. Select PhpMyAdmin from the DB Tools section.
  5. Click install and select the subdomain you created in the Choose Domain Drop box. Leave the In Directory box blank.
  6. Click install.

Next you will need to set the php.ini to allow larger file uploads.

Editing the php.ini to allow large database uploads

  1. Login into your cPanel.
  2. Copy your php.ini from your main domain to your subdomain document root folder.
  3. Edit the php.ini you copied to your subdomain for your PhpMyAdmin.
  4. Change the following to be larger than 100MB. You can make the settings like the example below.
    upload_max_filesize = 256mb memory_limit = 256mb post_max_size = 100mb

    Save the file.

  5. Make the php.ini recursive in the .htaccess by editing the .htaccess in the subdomain directory and adding the path to your subdomain document root folder.That’s all there is to it. You will now be able to use your Softaculous installed PhpMyAdmin to upload a database larger than 50mb.

26 thoughts on “How to Upload a Database That’s Larger Than 50MB

  1. This article is outdated. Step 2 link is dead. Step 3 and 4 are not current either. There is no PhpMyAdmin or Database Tools section under the Softaculous Apps Installer (which is also a different name than is listed in this article).

  2. Softaculous expects php 7.1 to install phymyadmin but is finding the server default of 7.0, even though i configured cpanel to use 7.2.

    1. The cPanel PHP MultiPHP Manager only controls the local user’s PHP version. Softaculous uses the server-wide PHP version. You would need root access to be able to change that for Softaculous to install phpMyAdmin through this method. In this case, you will need to install phpMyAdmin manually.

  3. I’ve installed my subdomain’s PHPmyadmin as you described above but the following error suggests that the 50mb limit is still intact.

    Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 262144 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 49152 bytes) in /home/****/public_html/beta/index.php on line 147

    How do I launch the subdomain’s version PHPmyadmin (with no limit) rather than the PHPmyadmin associated with my account that has a limit?

    Confused at the moment.

     

     

     

    1. Ensure you have completed the section above on “Editing the php.ini to allow large database uploads.” This section increases the PHP limitations for your account, and should allow you to allocate the resources.

      Thank you,
      John-Paul

  4. Once PhpMyAdmin has been installed on the subdomain, I can access it by opening the subdomain in my browser, but what account shoudl I use to log into phpMyAdmin, this is not clear from your article?  Ideally I woudl use root user but I don’t have the password for that.

    I tried the same user/password I use for my cpanel account but it did not work.

    1. Hi, I have installed phpmyadmin from softaculous in my addon domain ‘faiez.co’ in ‘public_html > faiez.co > phpmyadmin
      I filled ‘In directory’ field as ‘phpmyadmin’, also got the php.ini file from the inmotion support and editted it, I need to know from where can I upload the database? from cPanel phpmyadmin or somewhere else, becuase it shows 50 MB limit from cPanel phpmyadmin.

    2. The newly installed phpMyAdmin for your domain does not follow the 50MB limit for importing databases. You can simply import the new file within phpMyAdmin and it should work, even if it is over 50MB.

    3. Thank you for the response Does it mean that after changing my domain nameserver, and when my website will load from inmotion, then I have to access my new phpmyadmin from mydomain.co/phpmyadmin ? or directly from cpanel. I’m confused because when I try from cpanel, it show the 50mb limit error.

    4. Anytime importing a SQL file in phpmyadmin via cPanel, it will have a 50MB limit. If its installed via softaculous, then you should be able to load the file.

    5. i am getting

      Error 500 – Internal Server Error

      After installing phpmyadmin.

      https://phpmyadmin.munchtickets.com/

    6. Hello Rkijamvi,

      Can you please provide more information about your account? What server are you on? How have you configured phpmyadmin? We need a little more information in order to investigate the issue, please.

      If you have any further questions or comments, please let us know.

      Regards,
      Arnel C.

    7. My domain is munchtickets.com and yes I installed phpmyadmin but its giving me internal server error. Even I removed this sub domain and created a new one pma.munchtickets.com but still the same error.

  5. This seems a good option, however I am stack at the php.ini where can I copied it from? there is no php.ini in my main domain. if I copy one from my own computer then the phpmyadmin doesn’t load.

    1. If you are one of our customers. You can contact our Live Support team for a copy of the server’s php.ini folder to be placed on your account.

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