How to Reset WordPress Password?

There are many reasons to reset your WordPress password. One of the main reasons is to improve your website’s security. Generally, we recommend changing your WordPress password every once in a while.

Forgetting your password is another reason why users reset their WordPress password. In some cases, WordPress won’t send the reset password email. In this case, you need to reset your password.

The normal and standard way to rest your WordPress password is via the link on your login page. Once you click on it and type in your email address, WordPress sends you a reset password email.

But what if you don’t have access to your login page? We will discuss other ways below.

At the moment, if you wish to protect some of your WordPress posts, pages, or categories, we recommend that you read our article about the best WordPress password protection plugins.

It is recommended that you review our article on white labeling, customizing WordPress login page, as well as how to select the correct plugin to simplify the process.

How to Reset the WordPress Password?

There are two main ways to reset WordPress password. If you have access to your email, you can easily change your password. However, due to the webmail configuration, you may not receive this email.

Now you need to look for another way to reset your password. Other than the standard way, there are ways to reset your WordPress password.

1. Reset WordPress Password via Email

This is the most straight-forward method. First, type-in your WordPress admin login URL. Your WordPress login page should be https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin. In this page, click on “Lost your Password?” link.

In the opened page, type in your username or your email address. Then click on Get New Password to receive the reset password email.

2. Reset the WordPress Password Using phpMyAdmin

The second method is useful if you have forgotten your username and don’t have access to your email address. This method is different from other methods. In this method, you directly change your password from the database.

First, you need to login to your hosting panel. We imagine that you are using cPanel. After logging into your cPanel, from the Database section click on phpMyAdmin.

phpMyAdmin is a powerful tool you can use to access your database. phpMyAdmin is very user-friendly. Look for your website’s database from the left-hand side menu.

From the toolbar in phpMyAdmin click on Export. By doing so, you can export your SQL files. Change the Export method to Quick and click on Go.

You can download this file on your computer or on a cloud server. This file helps you restore your database in case anything goes wrong.

Go back to the Structure Tab. Look for wp_users table.

By clicking on this table you can see a list of available users on your website.

Select your desired username. Then you can see detailed information about the user you have selected. Due to security reasons, passwords in this table are not the actual password.

To reset the WordPress password, click on Edit next to the username. Then you are redirected to a page where you can choose a new password.

Type in your new password in the Value. Finally, set Function to MD5 and click on Go.

If you check user_pass again you can see the value has changed. This means the password has been changed.

3. Reset Admin Password via FTP

Using FTP is another method to reset the WordPress password. As you can probably tell, in this method, we are going to use FTP to connect to WordPress.

Then look for function.php file. Open this file in an editor. Copy and paste the code below right after the <?php tag:

wp_set_password ('password', 1);

“password” is your new password. 1 is the user ID. You can look for this ID in phpMyAdmin and user table.

Go to http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin Type in your username with the new password. Click on Login. You realize that you are redirected back to the login page.

Now you must go back to your function.php and delete the code you have pasted. Go to your WordPress login page again and type in your username with the new password and click on log in. Once you are in the WordPress dashboard you can change your password.

4. Reset WordPress Password with WP-CLI

WP-CLI is a command line you can use to manage your WordPress website. Go to your WordPress directory and type in the line below:

$wp user list

By running this command, you get a list of your users along with their ID. Remember the user ID you want to edit and type in the line below:

wp user update 1 --user_pass=newpassword

The number 1 is the user’s ID which you can change. Also, you can reset the WordPress password by changing the ‘newpassword’ value. This is all you need to do to reset the WordPress password.

5. Reset WordPress Password via Dashboard

WordPress dashboard is the last method in our list. If you can log in to your WordPress dashboard, then you change your password without accessing your email. Again, this method is useful when you don’t have access to your email.

Although the prerequisite for using this method is that the login session isn’t timed out in WordPress. This method is the simplest way to reset the WordPress password.

From your WordPress dashboard go to Users > Your profile. In this section, you can view your account’s information. (Email, profile picture, username and etc.)

On this page, from the Account Management section, you can reset the password.

In this method, you don’t need to remember your password. By simply clicking on Generate Password you can create a new and secure password for your account. You can also type a new password yourself.

Type in your desired password. WordPress evaluates your password. You can choose a weak password as well. Just need to check “Confirm use of weak password”.

Finally, click on Update Profile to save your changes. If this process is successful, you will see “Profile Updated” on top.

Resetting WordPress passwords is an easy task. The standard way to reset the WordPress password is via the reset password email.

But if you don’t have access to your email address there are many other ways to reset your WordPress password. With phpMyAdmin, you can easily change your password.