change joomla database prefix



Using the Joomla! Back-end (Super administrators only)


  1. Log in to the Joomla! backend.
  2. Go to Global Configuration by clicking the button in the control panel or via the menu (Site > Global Configuration).
  3. Go to the Server Tab.
  4. Under Database Settings, look for Database Prefix field. The value you find there is your database prefix.

A Tip!

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Using Configuration.php (Requires Access to the Site Root)


  1. Go to the document root and find the configuration.php file.
  2. Open the file in a text editor.
  3. Search for the word dbprefix.
  4. You'll see the line var $dbprefix = 'value'. The value you see here (for example, jos_) is your database prefix.
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Using a Database Interface (Requires Access to the Database, e.g. phpMyAdmin for MySQL)

Log into your database using phpMyAdmin. You will need the database username and password - you will have these from when you created the database. (If you do not have the username and password available you can retrieve them from the Joomla! website's configuration.php file - using the $user and $password variables to login.)
When you are connected to the database - look at the name of every table of the website. It will begin with a group of letters and the underscore symbol ('_'). These letters and the underscore is the database prefix for your website. An example prefix looks like this: 'jos_'.

If you have several databases make sure you connect to the database for your Joomla! website - you will find the name in the configuration.php file in the $db variable.


  1. Open your dump.sql file from Sources folder and choose Find & Replace tool. You need to replace all jos_ instances with your table prefix there. Paste jos_ to the Find field and your prefix to the Replace field, then click on Replace all button:
  2. Save the file and import it to your database.

Check your website, it should work properly now. In case any other questions appear, feel free to check our video version below: