How to access and use phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a browser tool for working with your MySQL/MariaDB databases.

Opening it

1. In DirectAdmin, open Extra Features › then phpMyAdmin.
2. If asked to log in, use a database user and password, or your DirectAdmin credentials where the panel passes them automatically.

Finding your way around

• Left sidebar — your databases. Expand one to see its tables.
• Browse — rows in a table.
• Structure — columns and indexes.
• SQL — run queries.
• Search — find values across a table or database.
• Export / Import — backups and restores. How to export a database (backup with phpMyAdmin) How to import a database with phpMyAdmin
• Operations — rename, copy, optimise.

Before changing anything

Export the database first. phpMyAdmin has no undo.

Editing a row

1. Select the table and Browse.
2. Select Edit on the row.
3. Change the value and select Go.

Running a query

Select the database, open SQL, and enter:

SELECT option_name, option_value
FROM wp_options
WHERE option_name IN ('siteurl', 'home');

Finding which database a site uses

Look in the application’s configuration file: wp-config.php for WordPress (DB_NAME), .env for Laravel, configuration.php for Joomla.

If it won’t open or times out

phpMyAdmin won’t open, logs out or times out