One account, several moving parts
A cPanel-style hosting account usually holds your website files, its MySQL database, your mailboxes and a DNS zone for the domain, managed from one panel. That convenience hides how connected they are. Changing mail records affects where website messages go. Moving the site does not move the mail. A cleanup of disk space can delete the only backup. Treat the account as four separate things that share a login.
- Website files and database.
- Mailboxes and forwarders.
- The host's own DNS zone for the domain.
- Backups kept in the account.
Mail routing and the host's own DNS zone
The Zone Editor creates, edits and deletes records in the host's zone, and cPanel says that MX changes determine where the domain's email is delivered. Email Routing is a separate per-domain setting. Its automatic mode reads only the host's local zone file, with no real DNS lookup, and picks Local when the lowest MX points at an address on that server. Our reading is that whether the public sees the host's zone depends on which nameservers the domain uses, so the local zone can drift from public DNS after a move and leave routing wrong. The Local setting accepts mail for the domain on the server; Remote refuses it and passes it to the lowest-numbered mail exchanger.
What a cPanel backup restores
The Backup Wizard offers a full backup, a tarball of the account, and partial backups: the home directory, MySQL databases, and forwarders and filters. cPanel says you cannot automatically restore a full backup in cPanel itself; automatic restoration is a host-level tool, so you would contact your hosting provider. Partial backups can be restored through the wizard. An account at or over its disk quota may fail to back up. The practical lesson is that a backup in the account is only useful if you have proved you can restore it, and that a copy elsewhere is better.
Where our jobs fit
Each is a published test price, not yet tested with buyers, payable after sign-off. The mail routing repair at £175 checks the Email Routing setting and the MX records. The WordPress move at £395 and the custom PHP move at £399 take a site off cPanel to a new host; the mailbox move at £295 takes mail to Microsoft 365. The disk-full and off-site backup jobs cover the host itself. A project covers moving site, DNS and mail together.
Boundaries
The hosting account, the domain and the mailboxes stay in your name. We ask for a backup, an export or scoped access arranged through a company-controlled secure handoff, never a password by ordinary email, and we do not buy or manage the new host. If your host refuses a setting, the host's support has the final say.
Sources and limits
- cPanel: Email Routing Checked 2026-10-11.
- Automatic detection reads only the local zone file; Local, Backup and Remote routing differ in whether the server keeps mail for the domain or passes it on.
- cPanel: Zone Editor Checked 2026-10-11.
- The editor creates, edits and deletes zone records, and MX changes determine where a domain's email is delivered.
- cPanel: Backup Wizard Checked 2026-10-11.
- A full backup is a tarball that cannot be restored automatically in cPanel; partial backups of the home directory, MySQL databases and forwarders can be restored through the wizard.