Importing Large MySQL Files into PHPMyAdmin

The default file size for uploading mysql dump files into PHPmyadmin is around 2mb. I needed to upload a 160mb file. How to do it?

1. Increase the maximum execution time for phpmyadmin:

I use xampp, so I just had to find the config.default.php file, which for me was located in xampp/phpMyAdmin/libraries/config.default.php. I then searched for the line $cfg[‘ExecTimeLimit’], and set this value to 0, for no limit.

2. Set a PhpMyAdmin Upload Directory

Thanks to the following stackoverflow article, I edited the config.inc.php file. I searched for the line $cfg[‘UploadDir’], and set that to ‘upload’.

3. Create the Upload Directory

I then created a folder named ‘upload’ within the phpmyadmin directory (so for me, this is ‘D:/xampp/phpMyAdmin/upload’) copy your mysql dump file to this folder.

4. Import the file

For the database you want to import the msql dump file to, go to the ‘import’ tab. There should now be a dropdown menu with the filename that you copied into that folder. Click on that, and then submit the import. Importing may take quite a while, but should work.