How to move a domain between subscriptions in Plesk

This guide will show you how to transfer a domain’s hosting between subscriptions, or to a new subscription of its own, in Plesk. A few notes on this before we begin:

• This can only be done if you have a Plesk Reseller account, or if you are a Plesk administrator (with a Plesk Web Pro or Plesk Web Host license)
• If you’d like to move a domain registration between Websavers customers, please have the current owner of the domain open a ticket to make the request – this guide will not be required.
• There are two parts of this that are not automatic: 1) Moving any related databases, and 2) Adjusting web application config files to work at the new path. We’ll describe how to move the databases, but you’ll need to determine what files need adjustment in your web app.
• 1-click web apps / Installatron will lose track of the app after the move, and it will need to be re-imported.

Please complete the following steps to move a domain in Plesk:

1. Begin by logging in to Plesk
2. If there is more than one domain in the subscription get a list of Databases: Go to the domain you wish to move, and click on Databases. In the list of databases, it will likely show you the domain that is associated with each database – take note of the database names that are associated with the domain (and any of its subdomains) that you will be moving. Sometimes the association between the database and domain is not shown – in that case you will need to manually determine the databases to move. This is also true if you have multiple apps installed on the same domain – only one will show in the list of databases.
3. Move the domain: Follow the guide provided by Plesk here (with screenshots) to move the domain. Do not choose the option to go to databases after moving the domain as it’s honestly not all that helpful.
4. Follow the steps below to move any necessary databases.

How to move a database between subscriptions

If the site you moved was the only domain in the subscription (ie: the primary domain with no addon domains), you do not need to move any databases because all databases associated with the source subscription have been automatically merged with the destination subscription.

If your site is a totally static HTML site (ie: there’s no page you go to login to manage its content), then you likely don’t have a database to move, and the above steps are all you needed to complete.

In all other cases, you will need to manually move the database (or databases) associated with the website(s) that moved to the destination subscription.

In the steps above, at part (2), we asked you to take note of the databases that are associated with the domain that is moving (along with any of its subdomains). If you skipped that step, then you will need to look in the web app config files (ex: wp-config.php) for the domain you moved and determine the database name manually.

With that list of databases in hand, follow these steps in Plesk:

1. Visit the source subscription where you moved the domain from, and click on Databases under any of its domains (the databases are conencted with a subscription, not a particular domain).
2. Select the first database to move, then choose the option to move the database to another subscription
3. Select the subscription where the domain was moved to and press OK.

Repeat this for each database associated with the moved domain(s).

If you do not move the databases, and leave them in the old subscription: the site will continue to work fine for now. However in the future, you might forget that these databases aren’t supposed to be there and remove them. Or you might remove the entire subscription thinking you no longer need it, forgetting that it still contains needed databases. This is why we move the databases now – to prevent future problems and keep everything organized properly.

How to update web app paths for the new location

After moving a domain, the path to locate it changes. Many web apps dynamically determine their location/path on disk meaning this isn’t a problem for them. While WordPress does this dynamically, some customizations do not, such as WordFence’s .user.ini settings.

After you move the site, check to be sure it’s working smoothly. If you see any problems, check the logs in Plesk as they will show you which config file is referencing an old file path that must be updated.

Change the paths in those config files to the new path. Here’s how to determine the path changes:

The old path often looks like this: /var/www/vhosts/<primary_domain>/<addon_domain>

The new path will then look like this: /var/www/vhosts/<new_subscription_primary_domain></addon_domain>

Or if you’ve moved the last/primary domain on a subscription it will go like this.

Old path: /var/www/vhosts/<primary_domain>/httpdocs

New path: /var/www/vhosts/<new_subscription_primary_domain/<moved_domain>/httpdocs