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How to Reset a WordPress Password from phpMyAdmin

Do you want to reset your WordPress password using phpMyAdmin?

If you are unable to reset your WordPress password, then there is a way to reset it directly in your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin.

In this article, we will show you how to easily reset a WordPress password from phpMyAdmin.

How to Reset a WordPress Password from phpMyAdmin

Why Reset a WordPress Password From phpMyAdmin?

WordPress makes it super easy to recover a lost password. You can simply go to the login screen of your WordPress website and click on the ‘Lost your password?’ link.

Click on 'Lost Your Password?'

When you click on the link you are taken to the password reset page. Once you enter your username or email address, WordPress will send a password reset link to the associated email address.

However, if you don’t have access to that email address, or your WordPress site fails to send an email, then you will not be able to reset your password.

In such a situation, you will need to reset your WordPress password directly in the database. The easiest way to do that is by using phpMyAdmin.

Having said that, let’s see how you can easily reset a WordPress password from phpMyAdmin.

How to Reset a WordPress Password From phpMyAdmin

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If you don’t want to watch the video tutorial, then you can continue reading the text version below.

First, you need to log in to the cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account. Next, you need to navigate to the Databases section where you can click on the phpMyAdmin icon.

Click the phpMyAdmin Icon

This will launch the phpMyAdmin app where you need to select your WordPress database.

Select Your WordPress Database

You will now see the list of tables in your WordPress database. You need to look for the wp_users table in this list and click on the Browse link next to it.

Click the wp_users Browse Link

Note: Table names in your WordPress database may have a different prefix than the one we are showing in our screenshot. Changing table prefixes can improve the security of your WordPress site.

You will now see the rows in your WordPress users table. Go ahead and click on the edit button next to the username whose password you wish to change.

Click the Edit Button Next to the Username

PhpMyAdmin will show you a form with all the user information fields.

You will need to delete the value in the user_pass field and replace it with your new password. Under the function column, select MD5 from the drop-down menu and then click on the Go button at the bottom of the form.

Select MD5 and Type Your New Password

Your password will be encrypted using the MD5 hash and then it will be stored in the database.

Congratulations! You have successfully changed your WordPress password using phpMyAdmin.

Some of you may be wondering why we selected the MD5 hash to encrypt the password. WordPress previously used MD5 hash to encrypt passwords, but since WordPress 2.5 it has been using stronger encryption technologies.

However, WordPress still recognizes MD5 to provide backward compatibility. As soon as you log in using a password string stored as an MD5 hash, WordPress will automatically change it to use the newer encryption algorithms.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to reset a WordPress password from phpMyAdmin. You may also want to see our ultimate step-by-step WordPress security guide to keep your WordPress site safe or check out our list of must have plugins.

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272 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Hello,

    Added Https to all pages, says unsafe, attempt to login and no luck, hit forgot password system reverts to Mojo Page…changed password per instructions above still no luck…any ideas how to get https off wordpress?

  2. OK, I have followed these instructions and successfully changed my admin password in the database and I still get a failed login message when I login with it. I need help gaining access to my site, please.

  3. Very simpel…. just change and save the users emailadress into something familiar in the database, click on forgot password in the wordpress login page :-)

  4. Awesome thanks so much for taking the time to write this just recovered by site in 60 seconds – as a newbie rely on help online :)))

  5. Thanks a lot. I had the problem but it has been solved . Otherwise I felt miserable about my wordpress login password being stolen

  6. another simple method for get the password, after edit the record change the email address. On wp-admin login screen, click on forget password. You will get the new link of make a new password.

  7. Thanks buddy, i used to do lots of stuff on my wordress blog few years ago but now i kind of forget how to do it. Your blog post refreshed my memory…thanks again

  8. Thank you so much! I couldn’t get into my new install of Word Press and of course it is the weekend. This is so well written that I was able to reset the admin password in one try.

  9. How is this discussion affected by the salts in the wp-config file? Do we need to combine those when creating a new password?

  10. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with clients that didn’t have a reputable developer/designer and left them high and dry with little to no access of their OWN site, noway of re-setting the password through the recovery email, this guide WOULD have been great 2 weeks ago, but I’m sure I’ll be using it in the near future…

    cheers Syed..

  11. ok, I have done step by step everything you have suggested and is not working……..what can I do?

    • You can do that as well. Then go click on reset button. Wait for the email to come. Then reset your password. Seems like a bit longer process, but to each their own.

      Admin

      • this helps very much when you are in local system . Password reset doesnt work some times in local server .

        I helped me a lot today

  12. Fabulous!!! Thank you!!! My client contacted me because their previous designer vanished and left them with NO login information for ANYTHING. This saved us all a lot of headaches.

  13. See that user_email field in the screenshot above? Just change the value to an e-mail address that you have access to. On the WP-Admin login screen, click “lost your password?” and type in the same e-mail address and you will receive a reset password link that will be easier than messing with MD5 hashing.

  14. There has been some talk about web applications moving to a hash of the password + another string, to make it harder for bad guys to get in. Do you think this is coming to WP soon? (I think Joomla and Drupal are already doing this.)

    • WordPress already has that built-in. You just have to add your own security keys in your wp-config.php file. Open it and you will see the place for it and a link where you can get your security keys from.

      Admin

  15. Under the functions column, if you choose MD5, MySQl will automatically encrypt your password in MD5. Simply type your plaintext password in the main box.

    This is a little easier than using other sites.

  16. You can also enter the password in plain text, and select MD5 from the function dropdown. It’ll automatically save the MD5 hash of the password in the database.

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