WHM allows you to easily modify an existing cPanel account contained within your reseller hosting, or cPanel server in the event you ever need to make any adjustments. In this guide we will show you how to select, and make changes to an existing cPanel account.

Firstly you will need to select the cPanel account that you’d like to modify. There are a couple of ways of doing this within WHM so we have included both in this guide.  Please either continue reading down, or use one of the links below to skip to the appropriate method:

Method 1: Modify a cPanel account via the ‘List Accounts’ page

Method 2: Modify a cPanel account via the ‘Modify an Account’ page

Alternatively, if you have already selected the cPanel account you’d like to modify, please click on the below link to skip straight to the ‘Modify an Account’ section:

Modify an Account

Method 1: Modify a cPanel account via the ‘List Accounts’ page:

One method of modifying a cPanel account is through the List Accounts Page.

Firstly, log into your WHM account. If you are unsure on how to do this, please view the following help article – ‘How to log into WHM‘

Once logged in, from your WHM home screen click on ‘List Accounts‘

Alternatively you can also access the List Accounts page by typing in ‘List Accounts‘ in the search box, located in the top left of your WHM area, then click on ‘List Accounts‘

On the List Accounts page, locate the account you would like to modify, then click on the ‘+‘ icon to the left of the account.

Click on the ‘Modify Account‘ button.

Please now scroll further down this guide to the ‘Modify an Account‘ section or click here to proceed.

Method 2: Modify a cPanel account via the ‘Modify an Account’ page:

The other method of modifying an account is through the Modify an Account page.

Once logged in, from your WHM home screen type in ‘modify an account’ within the search box, located in the top left of your WHM area, then click on ‘Modify an Account‘

On the Modify an Account screen, search for and select the cPanel account that you’d like to modify.

Then click on the ‘Modify‘ Button

Please now scroll further down this guide to the ‘Modify an Account‘ section or click here to proceed.

Modify an Account:

Now that you’ve selected the cPanel account you’d like to modify, you will see the Modify an Account screen.

In the first section of the page, you can modify the Basic Information for your cPanel:

• Primary Domain: The main domain attached to the cPanel account can be changed here. Please note that by changing this, usernames for any Email, FTP, or Web Disk accounts contained within the cPanel will be updated. For example, email addresses would adjust so that they are “@” the new domain name.

• Username: Adjusts the cPanel username. When clicking here to make a change, cPanel will also show a warning prompt, stating: “A username change may take some time to complete and may break websites that are associated with the account. You should verify the account’s integrity after you rename the account.” This is because by changing the username, cPanel will automatically adjust user prefixes, such as databases – You would then need to adjust your website configuration file to update this to use the new database prefix.

• Account Owner: This option is non-adjustable for reseller hosting accounts. If however you have a cPanel server, which also contains reseller accounts, this option will allow you to set the account ownership to either ‘root’, or the reseller account.

• Contact Email: Adjusts the email address that cPanel will send update / alert emails to, such as low disk space warnings.

• Default Locale: Adjusts the default language used on the cPanel account.

• cPanel Theme: Adjusts the theme you would like cPanel to use. paper_lantern is the current default cPanel theme, however if you have installed or modified a custom theme, this can be selected here.

• Enable Apache SpamAssassin: Adjust whether the cPanel spam SpamAssassin spam filtering is enabled or disabled for the cPanel account.

The next section relates to the package currently being used by the cPanel account.

Here you can either select a completely new package using the ‘Change‘ option, or manually modify the package settings for the cPanel account.  If you need to create a new package from the options you’ve adjusted, or just update the existing package – The options for this will be provided for this when going to save in the next steps of this guide.  More information on creating a package can also be found in our How to add a package to WHM guide.

A breakdown of the various manual settings are as listed below, simply select the ones you would like to adjust, and change their value as needed:

• Disk Quota: This is how much disk space you would like a cPanel using this package to have. This option is normally non-adjustable for reseller hosting accounts, as the quota is specifically tied to the package. You would instead need to create a new package with the required Disk Space quota. If you are modifying the cPanel account on your own cPanel server then this option should normally be available to adjust.

• Monthly Bandwidth: This is how much bandwidth you will allow the cPanel to use. This relates to data being sent / received by the cPanel, such as website visitors, downloading files from the website, uploading files to the cPanel etc. This option is normally non-adjustable for reseller hosting accounts, as the quota is specifically tied to the package. You would instead need to create a new package with the required bandwidth quota. If you are modifying the cPanel account on your own cPanel server then this option should normally be available to adjust.

• Max FTP Accounts: This will set a limit of how many FTP accounts can be created on the cPanel account using this package.

• Max Email Accounts: This will set a limit of how many Email Addresses / accounts can be created on the cPanel account using this package.

• Max Quota per Email Address: This sets the maximum disk space an email address can use on the cPanel. If set to ‘Unlimited’, this means that email addresses can use as much disk space as they want, up to the overall cPanel disk quota.

• Max Email Lists: This sets the limit of how many email mailing lists can be created on cPanel.

• Max Databases: This sets the limit of how many databases can be created on cPanel. This is normally tied to how many websites you want a user to have on their cPanel. For example 1 database would be 1 WordPress site.

• Max Sub Domains: This sets the limit of how many sub domains can be created on cPanel (for example staging.yourdomain.com, test.yourdomain.com  etc).

• Max Parked Domains: This sets the limit of parked domains (domain aliases) that can be added to the cPanel.  Domain aliases point to the primary domain on the cPanel.

• Max Addon Domains: This sets the limit of addon domains that can be added to the cPanel. This is for adding additional domains to cPanel (for example: mydomain2.com  mydomain3.com etc)

• Maximum Hourly Email by Domain: This sets the limit of how many emails the domain on the cPanel account can send per hour. We would normally advise to set a limit here  to ensure that if an email address starts sending spam or a high volume of email, the server does not become blacklisted by mail filters.

• Maximum percentage of failed or deferred messages a domain may send per hour: This sets the limit of how many percent of sent emails from the domain can fail within an hour. For example if you set a value of 80, this would mean the system will allow up to 80% of emails sent within an hour to fail (bounce-back) or defer (re-try sending automatically over a 24-48hr period). Once it then goes above 80% the system automatically limits email sending for the hour.

On the final section of the Modify an Account screen, you will see options for Privileges:

• Reseller Privileges: This option is non-adjustable for reseller hosting accounts. If however you have a cPanel server, this setting allows you to adjust whether the cPanel user is a reseller or not.

• CGI Privilege: If enabled, this allows the usage of cgi-scripts within the cPanel.

• Shell Access: This option is non-adjustable for reseller hosting accounts. If however you have a cPanel server, this setting allows you to adjust whether the cPanel user can access their hosting via SSH / Terminal.

This is then followed by the DNS Settings section:

• Enable DKIM on this account: Adjusts whether DKIM records are enabled or not on the cPanel account. DKIM adds a digital signature to your email headers, which validates against a DKIM record within your domains DNS to confirm it was sent from your domain and is not spam.
• Enable SPF on this account: Adjusts whether SPF records are enabled or not on the cPanel account. An SPF record helps to validate that mail being sent from an email address on your domain is from an authorised mail server, to help prevent outbound spam.

Once you’ve finished making adjustments to the cPanel account settings, click on the ‘Save‘ Button at the bottom of the page

If you haven’t adjusted the cPanel package settings, then you will be shown the green ‘Success!‘ Notice

If however you’ve made adjustments to the cPanel package settings, then you will be presented with 4 options to choose from in a ‘Package Conflict Resolution‘ window

• Create a new package with this name: This allows you to create a new package name, which will use the modified package values you set whilst modifying the cPanel account.

• Update package “” with these new values: This will set the cPanel to use the same package name, but also update ALL other cPanel accounts using this package, to use the new modified package settings you have set.

• Set this account to have no package: This will set the cPanel to have no package, and will be listed as ‘undefined’ once saved. This is not normally recommended, as it is best practise to have the cPanel account as a set package name.

• Keep this account on package “”: This will set the cPanel to still list the package as the same name it was on, but have the modified values you’ve set. Again this is not recommended, as this can cause confusion if you have multiple cPanel accounts using the same package name. It’s best practise to have the account use a different package name to reflect the modified values.

Once you’ve chosen your option click on the ‘Proceed‘ button.

This will then make the required changes, and you will then see the green ‘Success!‘ Notice.