Lost password? No problem. This happens all the time. Seriously, 37% of people forget their password once a week, so don’t feel too bad. You have a lot to keep track of and it’s easy for a password to go missing into the void. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to reset your WordPress admin password, so you’re safe.
Reset Your WordPress Admin Password Via Email
If you have access to your email, you’re in good shape. (If you don’t, there is a work around. Skip ahead and we’ll show you how to reset your admin password without email.)
Start by visiting your WordPress admin page and clicking “Lost your password?”
WordPress will send you an email where you’ll be asked to click through to a screen which will prompt you to create a new password. To keep your WordPress site as secure as possible, we suggest using a password with a varied combination of uppercase and lowercase letters plus special characters and numbers.
Once your password has been reset, you may log back into your site using the new password. Done and done.
What if I Can’t Access My Email?
If you can’t access your password via email, never fear, there is a way to manually reset your password. This requires you to have access to your hosting service cPanel (the page provided by your hosting service for configuring your website).
- Login to cPanel. Access your cPanel by entering yourdomainname.com/cpanel (Remember to replace “yourdomainname” with your domain name)!
- Go to Databases and click on phpMyAdmin.
- Go to WordPress Database on the left and click wp_users.
- A list of registered users will be displayed here. Choose which user’s passwords you’d like to reset and click on Edit.
- Replace the existing password with the updated version. Use CTRL-V if you’d like to paste it.
- Click on the drop-down menu and select MD5. (MD5 is an algorithm used to verify data integrity. Basically, it’s secure, so choose it).
- Click on Go! You’ll receive a success message confirming that your admin password is reset.
And that should do it! Now, since we’ve reset the password, take an extra step to prevent losing it again. You can use Google Smart Lock or an app such as LastPass to securely save your passwords and access them when you forget.
