How to Restore a Backup in Plesk: Step-by-Step Guide

Overview

Plesk backup recovery covers a surprisingly wide range of scenarios: rolling back a botched WordPress update, recovering a deleted email account, restoring a full subscription after a migration gone wrong, or rebuilding an entire server from a Plesk backup archive. The process differs depending on what you’re restoring and where the backup lives.

Plesk stores backups in two places: the local backup storage on the server itself, or a remote FTP/SFTP location you’ve configured in Backup Manager. If you’re on a managed VPS or dedicated server at Host & Tech, your backup files are typically stored under /var/lib/psa/dumps/ or in the remote storage path you set up. Knowing which one applies to you before you start saves a lot of time.

This article covers restoring backups through the Plesk web interface (Plesk Obsidian 18.x and later), the CLI via plesk bin pmm, and what to do when a restore fails partway through.

Prerequisites

• Access to Plesk as Administrator (server-level restores) or as a Subscription Owner (domain-level restores)
• The backup file must already exist — either in local storage or a connected remote storage location
• Enough free disk space to unpack the archive. A good rule of thumb: you need at least 2x the compressed backup size free on the target disk
• If restoring to a different server, Plesk must be installed and the target Plesk version should match or be newer than the source
• SSH access is optional but strongly recommended for large or failed restores

Understanding Plesk Backup Types

Before jumping in, it helps to know what you’re working with. Plesk creates backups at two levels:

• Server backup: Contains all subscriptions, reseller accounts, mail, databases, and Plesk configuration. Created via Tools & Settings > Backup Manager.
• Subscription backup: Scoped to a single domain/subscription. Created via the subscription’s own Websites & Domains > Backup Manager.

The restore interface differs slightly between the two, but the underlying process is the same. Backup files use a .tar extension — they’re not encrypted by default unless you enabled that option when the backup was created.

Step-by-Step: Restore a Subscription Backup via Plesk UI

This is the most common scenario — restoring a single site or domain.

1. Log in to Plesk and navigate to the subscription you want to restore. Go to Websites & Domains.
2. Scroll down and click Backup Manager.
3. You’ll see a list of available backups with timestamps. If you’re using remote storage and don’t see recent backups, click Retrieve List from Remote Storage first — this syncs the displayed list with what’s actually on the remote server.
4. Click the restore icon (curved arrow) next to the backup you want to restore.
5. On the restore options screen, choose what to restore:
   • Mail accounts and messages
   • Databases
   • Website files
   • DNS settings
   • Subscription settings

   📝 Note: You can restore selectively. If you only need the database back, uncheck everything else. This is useful when you’ve accidentally dropped a table and don’t want to overwrite recent file changes.

6. If the subscription still exists on the server, choose whether to overwrite existing data or restore alongside it. In almost every real-world case, you want overwrite.
7. Click Restore. Plesk will start a background task. You can monitor it under Tools & Settings > Background Tasks.

⚠ Warning: Restoring website files will overwrite everything in the subscription’s httpdocs directory. If the user has made changes since the backup was taken, those changes will be lost. Double-check the backup timestamp before confirming.

Step-by-Step: Restore a Full Server Backup via Plesk UI

Use this when you need to recover multiple subscriptions or full server configuration.

1. Log in to Plesk as Administrator.
2. Go to Tools & Settings > Backup Manager.
3. If the backup is in local storage, it’ll appear in the list. If it’s on remote storage, click Remote Storage Settings to confirm the connection is active, then click Browse Remote Storage.
4. Click the restore icon next to your chosen backup.
5. Select the components to restore. For a full recovery, leave everything checked.
6. 📝 Note: Restoring Plesk configuration will overwrite license settings, IP assignments, and administrator passwords. If you’re restoring to a new server, make sure the IP address structure matches or Plesk will throw IP binding errors post-restore.
7. Click Restore and monitor via Background Tasks.

Restoring via CLI (Recommended for Large Backups)

For backups larger than a few gigabytes, the web UI can time out mid-restore. I’d recommend using the CLI for anything over 5 GB. SSH into your server and use the plesk bin pmm utility:

# List available backups in local storage
plesk bin pmm --list-local

# Restore a specific backup file (replace filename as needed)
plesk bin pmm --restore /var/lib/psa/dumps/backup_info_1701234567.xml -level server

# Restore a single subscription backup
plesk bin pmm --restore /var/lib/psa/dumps/example.com_1701234567.xml -level domains

The -level flag controls the scope. Use server for full restores and domains for subscription-level restores.

📝 Note: The .xml file is the backup metadata file — not the actual data archive. Plesk uses it as the entry point and resolves the associated .tar files automatically. Both files must be in the same directory.

Uploading a Backup File from Your Local Machine

If the backup file isn’t already on the server (e.g., you downloaded it earlier or received it from a migration), you need to upload it first.

1. In Plesk, go to Backup Manager at either the server or subscription level.
2. Click Upload Backup Files to Server.
3. Upload both the _info.xml file and the accompanying .tar archive(s). If the backup has multiple volumes, upload all of them.
4. Once uploaded, the backup will appear in the list and you can restore it normally.

For large files, uploading via SFTP directly to /var/lib/psa/dumps/ is faster and more reliable than the browser upload. Use FileZilla or the scp command:

scp /local/path/backup_info_1701234567.xml root@your-server-ip:/var/lib/psa/dumps/
scp /local/path/backup_1701234567.tar root@your-server-ip:/var/lib/psa/dumps/

After uploading, fix file ownership so Plesk can read them:

chown psaadm:psaadm /var/lib/psa/dumps/backup_info_1701234567.xml
chown psaadm:psaadm /var/lib/psa/dumps/backup_1701234567.tar

Skipping that chown step is a very common cause of the “backup file not found” error in the UI. The Plesk process runs as psaadm and can’t read files owned by root.

Common Issues & Troubleshooting

Restore Task Hangs or Shows “In Progress” for Hours

Large backups can take a long time, but if the progress bar hasn’t moved in over 30 minutes, the task has likely stalled. Check the Plesk task log:

tail -f /var/log/plesk/PMM/plesk-pmm.log

Look for lines with ERROR or WARN. Common culprits: disk full mid-restore, a corrupt archive segment, or a database import timeout. If disk space is the issue, clear space and re-run the restore via CLI rather than the UI.

“Backup File Not Found” Error in Backup Manager

This usually means the file permissions or ownership are wrong, or the _info.xml and .tar files aren’t in the same directory. Run the chown psaadm:psaadm command shown above and verify both files are under /var/lib/psa/dumps/. Then click Rescan in Backup Manager.

Database Restore Fails with “Access Denied” or “Database Already Exists”

If the target database already exists with different credentials than what’s in the backup, Plesk can’t overwrite it cleanly. Drop the existing database manually before restoring, or use the selective restore option and uncheck the database, then re-import it manually via phpMyAdmin or the CLI:

mysql -u admin -p'your_password' target_db < /path/to/exported.sql

Restored Site Shows Blank Page or 500 Error

This usually happens when the backup was taken on a different PHP version than what’s currently active on the subscription. After restoring, go to Websites & Domains > PHP Settings and check that the PHP version matches what the application expects. Also check file permissions on httpdocs — Plesk should set these automatically, but sometimes they come back as root-owned after a restore.

Mail Not Restoring Correctly

If email messages aren’t appearing after restore, check that the Mail accounts and messages checkbox was selected during restore (it’s easy to miss). Also verify mailbox disk quotas — if a mailbox was over quota at restore time, Plesk may silently skip restoring its messages. Adjust the quota under Mail > [account] > Mailbox, then restore again with only Mail selected.

When to Consider Professional Help

If you’re restoring a backup on a VPS SSD Hosting plan at Host & Tech and the restore keeps failing, open a support ticket with the full output of your plesk-pmm.log. Our team can access the server directly and run the restore at the OS level if the Plesk interface is the problem — which happens more than you’d think after a control panel update goes sideways.

Quick Reference: Backup File Locations

• Local server backups: /var/lib/psa/dumps/
• Backup metadata: *_info.xml files in the same directory
• Plesk restore log: /var/log/plesk/PMM/plesk-pmm.log
• Plesk main log: /var/log/plesk/panel.log