Increase PHP limits in Plesk (upload size, memory, execution time)

If your website shows errors during uploads or updates (for example, “file exceeds upload_max_filesize”, “Allowed memory size exhausted”, or timeouts), you usually need to increase PHP limits for the domain in Plesk.

What limits can you change in Plesk?

• Website PHP limits (per domain): affect WordPress, CMS, forms, and file uploads through the website.
• Plesk File Manager upload limit: may be different. For large uploads, we recommend using FTP‑SSL instead.

Increase PHP limits for a domain

1. Log in to Plesk.
2. Go to Websites & Domains and choose your domain.
3. Click PHP Settings.
4. Adjust the values you need, for example:
   • memory_limit
   • upload_max_filesize
   • post_max_size
   • max_execution_time
   • max_input_time
   • max_input_vars (useful for large forms and page builders)
5. Click Apply.

Recommended starting values (WordPress)

Tip: increase limits gradually. Extremely high values can hide performance problems and may lead to slow requests.

How to verify the new limits

• WordPress: Tools → Site Health → Info (or try uploading a larger file to Media Library).
• PHP info: create a temporary file phpinfo.php with <?php phpinfo(); ?> in /httpdocs and open it in a browser (delete the file afterwards).

If the limit still does not change

• Make sure you changed PHP Settings for the same domain that the website uses (primary domain vs domain alias).
• If you use a CMS cache plugin, clear the cache after changes.
• For very large imports/uploads, use FTP‑SSL and split tasks into smaller steps.

Related articles

• Connect to hosting via FTP‑SSL (FTPS) using FileZilla
• phpMyAdmin in Plesk: import/export a database