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How to Reset a WordPress Password from phpMyAdmin

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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.

phpmyadmin panel in Bluehost

This will launch the phpMyAdmin app.

Here you need to select your WordPress database from the left pane.

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.

Expert Guides on Passwords in WordPress

Now that you know how to reset a WordPress password from phpMyAdmin, you may wish to see some other articles related to passwords in WordPress.

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 our expert pick of must-have plugins.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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287 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Prescott Chartier says

    I’ve tried this several times and each time it still says the password is incorrect, and yes I have the correct database.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      The next thing to check would be that the MD5 action is properly going through in your database or if it gives you an error.

      Admin

  3. Moinuddin Waheed says

    Changing password by clicking lost or forget password and then getting an email is an easy step.
    Using phpmyadmin for changing password is a bit developer oriented.
    I have used while developing sites from local host by flywheel but I fear doing for the live server.
    Do we have the same encryption after changing password as it was before or it is simply the hard coded text that we typed in as password?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      If you are using the phpMyAdmin method you would want to put in your password normally and in the function dropdown you would set it to MD5 to have the password be the text you placed in the field.

      Admin

  4. Branson says

    Hi,

    I have just tried to reset my password with the MD5 method you suggested, but it didn’t work. I tried like 5 times and every time I tried to login into my website it would say incorrect password. What’s wrong?

    Thanks in advance.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      If you have more than one WordPress installation on your hosting provider, ensure you are editing the correct database and ensure you apply the changes in the database for the most common reasons.

      Admin

  5. Stem says

    Hello,

    I tried to reset my password using this method, but it’s showing this error “Error: The username user is not registered on this site. If you are unsure of your username, try your email address instead.”

    • WPBeginner Support says

      That would normally mean your username is not on the site, you would want to ensure are logging in with the correct username or email address. The steps in this article should not affect your username or email.

      Admin

  6. blossominglotus says

    This method is not working for me. I even tried updating the password using raw SQL. It does change the password but I still cannot log in with the new password.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      If this method is not working then we would recommend reaching out to your hosting provider and/or checking that you are editing the correct database on your hosting provider if you have more than one database.

      Admin

  7. Guillaume Frasca says

    Hi, I followed your advice, but when I click on Go, I have the #1142 error message “UPDATE command denied to user ‘scienceisa431’@’@XX.XX.XX.X’ for table ‘mod597_users’
    Is there a way around this?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Your user may not have proper access on your hosting environment, if you reach out to your hosting provider they should be able to assist!

      Admin

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