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Deleting and recovering a cPanel account

Deleting a cPanel account from your CloudPress workspace doesn't wipe it off the hosting server straight away. The account is suspended and billing for it is cancelled immediately, but the account itself — its files, databases, mailboxes and addon domains — stays on the server for a retention window, during which it can be brought back exactly as it was. When that window runs out, or when you choose to remove the account right away, everything on it is destroyed for good.

This guide covers all three actions: deleting an account, living with one that's pending deletion, and either recovering it or permanently deleting it.

Recovering is a purchase, not an undo

Bringing back a deleted cPanel account means buying it again. Deleting cancels the account's billing outright, so there is no subscription left to revive — Restore builds a fresh cart for the package the account already has and takes you to the payment step. You pay before the account comes back. There is no free undo, and support can't reverse a delete without a new order either.

Before you start

  • cPanel hosting is enabled per workspace. If cPanel Accounts isn't in your workspace sidebar, none of this applies to you — see cPanel hosting on CloudPress.
  • Deleting and recovering need different permissions. Deleting is open to any member of the workspace who can reach the account. Restore and Purge now both need permission to manage the workspace's billing; without it the dashboard refuses with "You do not have permission to manage billing for this account." and "You do not have permission to permanently delete this cPanel account." respectively. Both buttons are shown to everyone, so the refusal arrives when you press them rather than the buttons being hidden.
  • CloudPress staff can't purge for you. Permanent deletion deliberately excludes staff who aren't members of your workspace: "Staff members who are not account members cannot purge a customer's cPanel account."
  • You'll be asked to confirm your identity. Deleting and permanently deleting are protected actions, so CloudPress asks you to confirm your identity with your passkey or password, if you haven't recently. Restoring doesn't ask.
  • The account has to be finished and unsuspended. A row still reading Provisioning… offers no actions at all, and neither does one marked Blocked — that one reads "Account suspended. Contact support to resolve." instead.

Delete a cPanel account

  1. Open the account list. In the workspace sidebar, choose cPanel Accounts.

  2. Open the row's actions menu. At the end of the account's row, next to Log in, open the three-dot actions menu.

  3. Choose Delete cPanel account. The Delete cPanel hosting account dialog opens and tells you what will happen: "{username} will be suspended and scheduled for permanent deletion.", followed by "You have 7 days to restore the account before it is permanently removed from the cPanel server."

  4. Confirm. The dialog's buttons are Cancel and Confirm. Confirm your identity if you're prompted to.

  5. You land back on the list with the message "cPanel account {username} scheduled for deletion. It will be suspended for 7 days — you can restore it during this time." The account is still in the list — the next section explains its new state.

The 7 days in that wording is the default, not a rule

Both the dialog and the confirmation message have 7 days written into them, but the real window is resolved for your workspace: a value set on your workspace wins, otherwise your billing plan's value, otherwise seven days. The date is worked out once, at the moment you delete, and is never recalculated — so trust the Scheduled for removal at date on the row rather than counting seven days yourself.

Over the API

DELETE /api/cpanel_accounts/{username} performs the same soft delete and answers 202 with the account's new state and its delete_scheduled_at date. It is gated on billing-management role membership, so an integration whose key belongs to a view-only member can't cancel accounts.

Purging is on the API too, as POST /api/cpanel_accounts/{username}/purge. It has the same precondition as the button: the account must already be scheduled for deletion, so there is no single call that destroys a live account. The API asks for the workspace's service-lifecycle permission where the dashboard asks you to re-confirm your identity.

Recovering is the one part that stays dashboard-only. Because restoring is a re-purchase (see the warning at the top of this page), it runs through a cart and a payment step rather than an API call, and there is no restore endpoint. See Still dashboard-only in the API reference.

What happens while the account is pending deletion

  • The account is suspended, not deleted. Websites on it stop serving and its mailboxes stop working, but nothing is erased. Files, databases, mail and the account's domains are all still on the hosting server, waiting to be switched back on.

  • Billing has already stopped. The subscription is cancelled at the moment you delete, not at the end of the window, and the unused part of the term you prepaid comes back as account credit on your balance rather than as a refund to your card. See Billing.

  • The row changes in the list. It gains a red Pending deletion badge and, underneath the username, a Scheduled for removal at line with the exact date and time. The Log in button and the actions menu are replaced by two buttons: Restore and Purge now — so while an account is pending deletion you can't sign in to cPanel, change its password, manage its domains or change its package from the dashboard.

  • The API locks it too. A package change, a password change and adding or removing a domain are all refused with 403 and the code pending_deletion — "This cPanel account is pending deletion and is locked. Recover it to make changes." — and the response carries the delete_scheduled_at date so an integration can tell how long is left. Reading the account still works, so you can check its state and its deletion date, and so does purging it, which is the one write that requires this state.

  • You can't sign in to it. The dashboard row replaces Log in with Restore and Purge now, and the account is suspended on the hosting server for the whole window. Restore it first if you need to get back into cPanel.

  • The account stops counting. The account total shown next to Username in the list header no longer includes it.

  • Your workspace keeps cPanel. Even if this was your only account, the cPanel Accounts sidebar item stays put for the whole window, so you can always get back to the row to restore or purge it.

  • The username is held. It stays reserved until the account is purged. That doesn't stop you ordering another account in the meantime — you're never asked to pick a username, so a new account simply gets its own.

Recover an account that's pending deletion

Recovering re-purchases the hosting and then revives what was suspended, so your files, databases and mailboxes come back as they were rather than being rebuilt from scratch. Nothing is re-provisioned and no new account is created on the server.

  1. Click Restore on the row. In the workspace sidebar, open cPanel Accounts and click Restore on the pending-deletion row.

  2. Check the cart. CloudPress opens a cart carrying the same package the account already has and sends you straight to the payment step, skipping the package picker. It's priced as a fresh purchase at the price currently offered to your workspace, not at whatever you originally paid.

  3. Pay. The button reads Pay followed by the amount. If your available account credit covers the whole thing — which it often will, since deleting credited the unused part of your term — there's nothing to charge today and the button reads Confirm change instead.

  4. Wait for the order to finish. Once payment settles, the account is attached to the new subscription, the pending deletion is cleared, and the account is un-suspended on the hosting server.

  5. Confirm on the list. The Pending deletion badge and the Scheduled for removal at line are gone, and the row offers Log in and its actions menu again.

Restoring clears your other carts

Starting a restore expires any other cart you had in progress in that workspace, so finish or abandon anything else you were buying first.

If the cart can't be built — for example the account's package is no longer on offer to your workspace — the dashboard says so instead of charging you: "Could not start the restore process: {reason}". Contact us if you hit that.

Delete an account permanently (Purge now)

Most often you'll do this because you're certain you're finished with the account and would rather not leave it sitting on the server for the rest of the window.

This can't be undone

Permanent deletion removes the whole cPanel account from the hosting server — every website, file, database, mailbox and message on it, along with its addon domains and the DNS zones we manage for them. As the dialog puts it: "This will immediately and permanently delete {username} from the cPanel server. This cannot be undone." There is no restore afterwards.

  1. Open the account list. In the workspace sidebar, choose cPanel Accounts.

  2. Click Purge now on the pending-deletion row.

  3. Read the dialog and confirm. It's headed Permanently delete cPanel account, and its buttons are Cancel and Confirm. Confirm your identity if you're prompted to.

  4. You land back on the list with "cPanel account {username} is being permanently deleted.", and the row disappears. If it was your last account, the list is replaced by the No cPanel Hosting Found panel.

A few things to know:

  • Only an account already scheduled for deletion can be purged. There's no single-step "remove it all right now" — you delete first, then purge. Trying it otherwise reports "This cPanel account is not scheduled for deletion."
  • Doing nothing has the same effect. Once the Scheduled for removal at date passes, CloudPress purges the account automatically; Purge now only waives the wait.
  • There's no further credit at this point. Billing was cancelled and credited when you first deleted, so permanent deletion touches the hosting only.
  • The username is released once the purge finishes.
  • If the row lingers, the hosting server's database may still be catching up. Trying to act on it again reports "This cPanel account has already been permanently deleted. If it still appears in the list, the hosting server database is still synchronising — try refreshing in a moment."

Next steps