What we need from you to migrate (checklist)

Applies to: All plans. Migration is free on every plan — Self-Managed and Managed alike — and we do it for you; on Self-Managed you can also self-migrate if you prefer.

Use this checklist to gather everything we need before a migration. The more of this you have ready, the faster and cleaner your move will be. Send it to us in a request at support.maxinodes.com, in chat, or by email to support@maxinodes.com.

We will never ask you for a password by email or chat. Everything below is designed so a password never has to go into a request or a chat. Our Help Center, chat and support inboxes run on a third-party helpdesk, so anything you type there is stored on someone else's systems — keep passwords out of it.

1. A copy of your current site

Give us one of the following so we can copy your site across:

What	Why we need it	Where to find it
A full cPanel backup file (best)	A self-contained copy we can restore as-is	cPanel Backup / JetBackup on your old host, or ask them to generate one
Your site files + a database dump (`.sql`)	For non-cPanel or custom setups	Download over FTP/SFTP and export from phpMyAdmin, or ask your developer
A temporary account at your old host, created for us	Only if no copy can be produced — see below	You create it, and you delete it when the move is signed off

Upload the file to your Maxinodes account, or send us a download link — whichever is easier.

If no copy can be produced, create a temporary account at your old host with only the access the move requires. Tell us the username in your request, and we will agree a secure one-off way for you to hand the password over — never in the request itself. Delete or change that account as soon as the migration is signed off.

If you're on cPanel elsewhere, a cPanel-to-cPanel transfer is usually the smoothest path. See cPanel-to-cPanel transfers explained.

2. Your domain and where it's registered

Tell us:

The domain name(s) you're moving.
Where the domain is registered (the registrar you pay for the domain) and whether you can log in there.
Whether you want to keep the domain at its current registrar or transfer it to Maxinodes later.

You don't have to transfer the domain to host with us — you only need to point it. When you're ready, you'll set your nameservers to ns1.maxinodes.com and ns2.maxinodes.com — the zone we create then contains both the A and the AAAA records, so you do not have to add anything. Or, if your DNS stays at another provider, add the records there yourself: an A record to 185.185.49.198 and an AAAA record to 2a00:7c80:0:286:c::10. Customer websites are served over both IPv4 and IPv6 (dual-stack).

Note: DNS records here are managed by us, on our own nameservers, and you edit them in your client area, not the cPanel zone editor.

3. Your current DNS records

If you have custom DNS records (subdomains, verification TXT records, third-party services), list them or point us at where they live now so nothing is lost. We recreate them in your client area DNS manager during the move.

4. Your email setup

Your plan includes mailboxes on your domain, and moving your existing mail into them is part of the free migration. You can also keep your current provider, or move to Professional Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace). Tell us:

Who hosts your email today (e.g. your old host's mailboxes, M365, Google Workspace, or another provider), and whether your old host runs cPanel.
The addresses to move, roughly how big each mailbox is (mailboxes share your plan's storage), and any forwarders you want to keep.
Whether you'd rather keep your current provider, or have us set up Professional Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) as part of the move.

From another cPanel host, the full cPanel backup in section 1 already carries your mailboxes with their mail, passwords, forwarders and filters. From anywhere else, we create the mailboxes here and copy each one over IMAP, which needs its password at the old provider: we agree a secure one-off way for you to hand those over, never in the request itself, and you change them once the move is signed off. Either way the order is the same: the mailboxes exist here and are tested, the mail is copied, the MX (or the nameservers) switches, a final copy picks up anything that arrived meanwhile, and the old mailboxes stay open for a week. See How to move your existing email to Maxinodes, or How to migrate your email to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. If your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace seats are ordered through us, we configure your MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for you — on any hosting plan.

5. A preferred cutover window

Tell us a low-traffic time (day and time zone) when you'd like to flip the domain over to Maxinodes. We copy and stage your site first, test it, then switch DNS during your chosen window to keep disruption to a minimum. DNS changes usually propagate within minutes to a few hours, occasionally up to 24–48 hours, depending on your record TTL.

6. Anything we should know

Any apps or frameworks beyond standard PHP/MySQL (so we can confirm they're supported on shared hosting).
Scheduled tasks (cron jobs) you rely on.
A working current URL we can compare against after the move.

Result: With items 1–5 in hand, we can stage your site, recreate your DNS and email records, and cut over in your chosen window.

A quick note on fees: domain registrations/renewals are non-refundable once provisioned.