This brief post shows users how to change forgotten passwords in WordPress. If one forgets his or her password, there are many ways to recover or reset it. However, some hosts prevent the use of mail() function or users with forgotten passwords may not have access to the email address associated with his/her account. If you find yourself in similar situations, follow the steps below to learn how to easily reset forgotten WordPress passwords.

Reset Password from WordPress Admin Dashboard

One way users can reset their password in WordPress is from the admin dashboard. This only works if the user(s) have access to the WordPress admin area. A user can reset his/her password by logging in to his/her account and going to Dashboard –>  Profile –> selecting his/her account and generating a new password under Account Management.

Resetting Forgotten Password

Users can reset forgotten passwords from the login page. Just click the Log your password. link to reset. For this to work, your host must enable mail() function and the email address for the user must be valid and accessible. Without those two things, the method will not work.

Reset Password using phpMyAdmin (cPanel)

Another way one can reset his/her password is via phpMyAdmin via cPanel. Most hosts provide cPanel access to users to manage their domain and content. To reset your WordPress password via phpMyAdmin, log on to cPanel or directly to phpMyAdmin. Then navigate to the Database section and select phpMyAdmin When it opens, select and expand the WordPress database and click the wp_users table. This should list the users. Next to the user with a lost password, select the Edit link. On the next page, find the user_pass column, change the Function to MD5 and type a new password in the value field, and click Go. When you click Go. it should update the password table with the new one.

Resetting WordPress Password from MySQL

Another way to reset one’s WordPress password is using MySQL or MariaDB SQL command. Run the commands below to log on to the database. Then run the commands below to select the WordPress database named wpdb, and change it to what you named your WordPress. Run the commands below to change the password for the user-named demo. change the name to what you called it. This should change the password for the username demo. That’s it!