Database Access

You can use phpMyAdmin to access your website’s database and run a wide range of operations. This guide will show you how to administer your site’s MySQL database.

Before accessing your database

Database management is an advanced task and should only be performed by users with experience in MySQL. Most site owners will never need to access their database directly. Do not make changes unless you have a clear, specific reason to do so.

If you’re unsure what a command does, do not run it. Executing unfamiliar commands can break your site or result in data loss. Always test any database changes on a staging site first.

Before accessing your database, consider contacting a Happiness Engineer. We’re happy to help determine whether database access is necessary and may be able to suggest safer alternatives. However, we are unable to assist with creating, modifying, running, or debugging database commands.

If you experience issues after making database changes, you can restore your site from a backup.

Access your site’s database

Each WordPress.com site comes with a single, pre-configured database. It is not possible to create additional databases, connect your site to a different database, or access the database externally.

To access your site’s database, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dasard and navigate to Hosting → Overview (or Settings → Hosting Configuration if using the default interface style).
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. Click Database in the sidebar.
4. Click the “Open phpMyAdmin” button. A new tab will open. If you are not redirected automatically, click the provided link to access your database in phpMyAdmin.

You can also access your database through WP-CLI.

Database actions

PhpMyAdmin is a tool used to access your site’s database and run commands to interact with it. For help with using phpMyAdmin, you can consult the phpMyAdmin documentation.

You can also use phpMyAdmin to upload .sql files and import database content.

Keep in mind that the size of the database counts against your plan’s storage limit. File size limits and max execution time are set on the server side and cannot be changed.

Download your site’s database

To export a copy of your database, you can download it from your site’s backups, which are managed by Jetpack VaultPress Backup.

• Visit your site’s dasard and navigate to Jetpack → VaultPress.
• Choose the backup you want.
• Click the down arrow on the “Restore to this point” button or click the Actions button. 

• Click the “Download backup” option.
• On the following screen, uncheck all options except “Site database”.
• Click “Create downloadable file“.