---
title: "How to: Restore a single table in MySQL"
slug: "how-to-restore-a-single-table-in-mysql"
updated: 2026-07-01T00:45:30Z
published: 2026-07-01T00:45:30Z
canonical: "docs.serversaustralia.com.au/how-to-restore-a-single-table-in-mysql"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.serversaustralia.com.au/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How to: Restore a single table in MySQL

Customers with a Professional Services Agreement who utilise Backup Services with Servers Australia will have their Databases exported from cPanel and backed up nightly. However, sometimes you may not require a whole database to be restored, you may just need a table. The following process shares the steps to restore a single table.

In the example below, we will be restoring a table called **'users'** in the database **'business_db'** from a backup of the sites database.

1. Through an SSH Connection to your server, locate the backup file captured

```shell
cd /home/r1softtemp/
tar -zxvf cpmove-business.tar.gz cpmove-business/mysql
```

The files will now be extracted, ready for use.

  

2. From here, we'll create a temporary database so we can import the table that is required.

```plaintext
mysql
mysql> CREATE database TEMP_SAU;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> exit
Bye
```

**NOTE: It is important to check the SQL File before continuing.**

**Do not proceed if it contains 'DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS `business_db`; It will wipe out the running database.**

3. Import the backup database extracted earlier into the temporary database we created

```shell
mysql TEMP_SAU < cpmove-business/mysql/business_db.sql
```

4. Run a **'mysqldump'** on the table that is required

```shell
mysqldump --add-drop-table TEMP_SAU users > users.sql
```

5. With that table extracted into its own SQL file, we can import that into the live database **'business_db'**

```shell
mysql business_db < users.sql
```

6. Once everything is confirmed done, we can clean up the restored files and temporary database created from earlier

```shell
rm -rf cpmove-business users.sql
```

```plaintext
mysql
mysql> drop database TEMP_SAU;
Query OK, 199 rows affected (1.92 sec)
```