How to Recover a Deleted Website From Hostinger

To recover a deleted website from Hostinger, first work out how it was deleted, because that decides which route still works. If you removed the site from a hosting plan that is still active, add the domain back to the plan and restore its files and database from the Backups section in hPanel. If the plan expired, renew it or download the last backup while the plan is still in its expired state, which Hostinger says lasts 30 days. If those backups are gone, the remaining route is to rebuild the site from public archive captures such as the Wayback Machine. If the site was hosted at GoDaddy instead, see our guide to recovering a deleted GoDaddy website.

This guide walks through each situation in order, from the fastest fix to the last resort, and explains what each route can and cannot bring back. Menu names in hPanel change from time to time, so treat the click paths as a guide and check Hostinger’s own help pages if a label looks different. If you would rather hand the job over once the backups are exhausted, our website recovery service rebuilds lost sites from archived captures.

First, find out how the Hostinger website was deleted

“My site is gone” can mean several different things on Hostinger, and each one has a different answer. Before clicking anything, log in to hPanel and note which of these describes your account:

• The website was removed from an active plan. The hosting plan is still paid and active, but the site no longer appears in the Websites list, usually because someone deleted it to free a slot or by mistake.
• The hosting plan expired. The plan shows as expired or inactive because a renewal payment failed or was not made. The sites on it stopped loading.
• The plan was cancelled or refunded. Hostinger states that terminating a service, whether by expiry or refund, permanently deletes its data, and a refund removes it straight away.
• A temporary website was deleted. Sites built on a temporary Hostinger subdomain behave differently from sites on your own domain.
• The site is still there but empty or broken. A failed update, a bad plugin, or an overwritten folder can make a site look deleted when the account is intact. Our checklist for a website that is offline or deleted helps you tell the two apart.

Also check whether the domain is still registered. A domain that has expired makes the site disappear even when the hosting files are safe. Domain renewal is a separate fix from file recovery.

How to recover a deleted website from Hostinger when the plan is active

This is the best case. Hostinger’s help centre describes the process as re-adding the domain to the hosting plan and then restoring the website’s files and database from the latest backup. In outline:

1. Add the website back. In hPanel, add the same domain to the same hosting plan again. Use the exact domain the old site used, including whether it was the main domain or a subdomain.
2. Open the Backups section. Go to the site’s dashboard and search for Backups in the sidebar. Look at the list of available backup dates.
3. For WordPress sites, try the one-click restore. Hostinger offers a WordPress restore that rolls the whole site back to a chosen date. If it reports that no backups were found, Hostinger suggests trying the files backup method instead.
4. For other sites, restore files and database separately. Restore the files for the date you choose. Then recreate the database with the same name, username and password the site used before, and restore the database backup into it. If those details do not match, the site will show a database connection error even though the data is back.
5. Test before you announce it. Load the home page, a few inner pages, the contact form, and the admin login. Clear any cache plugin and your browser cache before judging the result.

Two limits are worth knowing. First, these restore methods work within the same Hostinger account; you cannot pull a backup from someone else’s account this way. Second, backups are kept for a limited time, and how many you have depends on your plan, so do not wait to start. If an agency or developer controlled the account, our guide on recovering website access when a developer disappears covers how to regain control first.

When the Hostinger plan has expired

An expired plan is not the same as a deleted site, at least for a while. According to Hostinger’s support pages, a plan that expires for non-payment stays in an expired status for 30 days. During that window you can:

• Renew the plan. Hostinger says websites on a renewed expired plan are restored automatically.
• Download the most recent backup of files and databases, even if you do not want to renew. This is worth doing anyway, so you hold a copy outside Hostinger.

After those 30 days, Hostinger says the plan is permanently deleted, cannot be renewed, and its backups are no longer available. Contact support quickly if you are close to the deadline, but plan for the possibility that nothing remains on their side. Our article on a website deleted after hosting expired explains the general pattern across hosts.

Email is a separate case. Hostinger stores email on separate infrastructure, so mailboxes are not part of hosting backups or plan reactivation. If your messages matter, check the email service on its own.

Deleted temporary websites and AI-built sites

Hostinger notes that a deleted temporary domain cannot be recreated. Instead, you create a new temporary domain, restore the old files into it, and rename folders so the site loads. If the dashboard shows no backups for the old temporary site, Hostinger says the data can no longer be recovered.

Sites made with Hostinger’s AI website builder are not file-based in the same way, and Hostinger says they do not have backups you can download manually; they come back only through plan reactivation. If the plan was cancelled, that data is gone, and an archive rebuild is the only route left.

If Hostinger has no backup left: rebuild from archived captures

When the account, the plan and the backups are all gone, the website itself may still exist in public web archives. The Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive saves copies of public pages as its crawlers visit them. If your site was public for a while and had some links pointing to it, there is a good chance that at least the main pages were captured.

Start by checking what the archive holds. Enter your domain in the Wayback Machine and look at the calendar of capture dates, or run it through our free website restore checker. Note the last date when the site looked complete, before any error pages, parking pages or a new owner’s content appeared.

Be clear about what an archive rebuild can return:

• Usually recoverable: page text, headings, the visible layout, many images, stylesheets, scripts, and the URL structure of pages that were crawled.
• Not in the archive: the database itself, admin accounts, customer records, orders, form submissions, private or password-protected pages, and email. These never travelled through public pages, so the archive never saw them.
• Often incomplete: deep pages with few links, large galleries, and files loaded by scripts. Our guide to incomplete Wayback archives lists other places to look, such as old exports, emails with attachments and social posts.

For a WordPress site that lived on Hostinger, the practical result is a fresh WordPress installation with the old pages, posts, menus and images put back from the archive. Our guide to restoring a deleted WordPress site covers that rebuild in detail.

Step-by-step plan for a Hostinger site with no backups

1. Secure the domain. Renew it, or confirm who owns it now. If it has lapsed, act before someone else registers it.
2. Collect every local copy. Search your computer, cloud drives, old emails and your developer’s files for exports, theme files, logos and images. Anything original beats an archived copy.
3. Map the site from the archive. List the pages the archive holds and the date of the best capture for each one.
4. Rebuild on clean hosting. Set up hosting (Hostinger again or another host), install the platform you want, and recreate pages with the archived text and images, removing archive toolbars and rewritten links.
5. Keep the old URLs. Match the original addresses so existing links and search results still land on the right pages, and add redirects where a URL has to change.
6. Rebuild what the archive could not hold. Recreate contact forms, user accounts and integrations, and reconnect analytics.
7. Turn on backups that you control. Keep at least one copy outside your hosting account so the same problem cannot repeat.

How to stop it happening again on Hostinger

Most Hostinger site losses come from an expired payment method, a deleted site that someone thought was unused, or a cancelled plan during a move. A few habits prevent nearly all of them:

• Keep off-site backups. Download a full backup of files and database every month and after big changes, and store it outside the hosting account.
• Turn on auto-renewal with a payment method that will not expire, for both the hosting and the domain.
• Never cancel or refund the old plan until the new site is live and checked, because a refund deletes data immediately.
• Use more than one admin. Give a second trusted person access so a single lost login does not lock the business out.

When to ask for help

If Hostinger still has a backup, restore it yourself first; it is faster and more complete than any rebuild. Ask for help when the backups are gone, when the restore produced a broken site you cannot fix, or when you need the rebuilt site on a new host or platform. Our website restoration services rebuild sites from archived captures for WordPress, Elementor, plain HTML and other platforms, and you can contact us with your domain for an honest view of what the archive holds.

Hosted with SiteGround instead? Our guide on how to restore a SiteGround website explains its Site Tools backups and what happens to them when a site is deleted.

Frequently asked questions

Can Hostinger support recover a website I deleted?

If the plan is active and backups exist, you can restore them yourself from hPanel, and support can help if the restore fails. If the plan was terminated or the backups have aged out, Hostinger has said the data is permanently deleted, so support cannot bring it back.

How long does Hostinger keep files after a plan expires?

Hostinger’s help pages describe a 30-day expired status during which you can renew or download the last backup. After that period the plan and its backups are deleted.

Will a Wayback Machine rebuild bring back my WordPress database?

No. The archive stores public pages, not the database behind them. A rebuild puts the published content back into a new installation, but user accounts, orders and form entries cannot be restored from the archive.

Is it worth checking the archive even if I restored a backup?

Yes, if the backup is old. The archive may hold newer versions of some pages that you can copy back by hand to fill the gap between the backup date and the deletion.