The most reliable way to move a subdomain from one account to another is roughly as follows:
- Download the files and database of your website to your computer. The Backup article shared before describes this in more detail.
- Set up the website on the new hosting account. You can create the directory
upm.rf.gd/htdocson the new account, and upload your files to it. You can also create a new database on the new account, import the contents, and update the configuration file. The Migrate article shared before covers this in more detail. - Remove the domain name from the old account.
- Add the domain name from the new account.
That’s it! It can take a while for your website to work again because the IP address was changed. You don’t need to do anything for it, but due to DNS caching it can take up to 72 hours to correctly resolve to the new account (but usually less than 12 hours). But if you completed step 2 successfully, then once the domain name is back up again, your website should be exactly as you left it.
And just a few things to make clear:
- Yes, backing up and “migrating” is the way to move files between accounts.
- There is no way to move websites between accounts directly, it’s a manual process.
- There is no need to deactivate your account during this process. If the old account is obsolete, you can deactivate it after step 3, but it’s not necessary to migrate the website. Just don’t deactivate the old account while the domain is still attached to it, it will just take down your website and make you unable to access the files or unlink the domain until you reactivate the account.
- Please understand the difference between a “hosting account”, “domain name” and “website”, these terms are not interchangeable. A single hosting account can contain multiple domain names, and a single domain name can host multiple websites. Our Glossary covers these different terms: InfinityFree Glossary - Terminology and their definitions