If you want to try a theme change, test a plugin, or check whether an update breaks anything, don't do it directly on your live website. Softaculous, the app installer built into your hosting account, has a Clone feature that copies your entire app (files and database) to a separate location so you can experiment safely.
Why Clone Instead of Editing Your Live Site
A clone is a full working copy of your app, usually placed on a subdomain like staging.yourdomain.com. Visitors to your real website never see it, so you can install plugins, change settings, or test an update without any risk to what your customers are viewing right now.
A clone is a snapshot, not a live mirror. Changes you make on your real site after cloning won't appear on the clone, and changes on the clone won't appear on your live site unless you move them over yourself. Treat it as a one-time copy for testing, not an ongoing backup.
Before You Start: Create a Place to Put the Clone
Softaculous needs somewhere to install the copy. The simplest option is a subdomain such as staging.yourdomain.com, created ahead of time in your control panel. If you haven't set one up yet, see how to create a subdomain in cPanel and DirectAdmin. You can also clone into a subdirectory of your existing domain (e.g. yourdomain.com/staging) if you prefer not to create a subdomain.
How to Clone Your App
This process is the same in both cPanel and DirectAdmin, since Softaculous is the same tool in either panel.
- Log in to your control panel and open Softaculous Apps Installer.
- Click the All Installations icon (sometimes shown as a list icon in the top menu) to see every app you've installed.
- Find the app you want to copy and click the Clone icon next to it (it looks like two overlapping squares).
- Choose the destination: pick the subdomain or subdirectory you want the clone installed to.
- Review the site name, admin details, and other install options shown on the screen, then click Clone.
- Wait for Softaculous to finish. It copies both the files and the database, so this can take a few minutes for a larger site.
Once it's done, you'll get a separate admin login for the clone. Log in there to make your changes and test freely.
After You're Done Testing
- If the changes worked well, you'll need to repeat them manually on your live site (installing the same plugin, applying the same setting) since Softaculous doesn't push a clone's changes back to the original automatically.
- Delete the clone once you're finished with it. A forgotten staging copy still uses disk space and is another target to keep updated and secure.
- Consider blocking search engines from indexing the clone while it exists, so it doesn't show up in search results as duplicate content.
If you'd rather keep a copy for safekeeping instead of testing changes, that's a backup, not a clone. See how to back up and restore an app installed with Softaculous for that instead.