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Change WordPress Password

One of the worst things that could happen to your blog is losing your login credentials. It’s a rare event, but it does happen occasionally. This is particularly true if you run hundreds of blogs and websites. Keeping track of all usernames and passwords can be a bit of a challenge.

If you have forgotten your WordPress password, you can quickly recover it, by using the “Lost your password” link underneath the login form. In my case, WordPress mail was not working. So, not only I can’t remember my password, but I also can’t send out lost passwords via email.

Thankfully, I had access to PHPMyadmin, a MySQL database administration tool.

Log in to PHPMyadmin. Access the WordPress database and look for the wp_users table. Edit the admin user and change the “user_pass” field. The WordPress password field uses the MD5 encryption instead of being in the clear.

password

Save your changes. Log in to WordPress.

Comments

  1. This has happen to me (more than once) and I still cant figure out how to get WordPress email working on my Linux Server.
    My question is, do I have to use an app (or command line) to encrypt my password and that into the phpMyAdmin?

    • WordPress uses the wp_mail function which leverages PHP mail function. If PHP is not configured correctly, you will not able to send out emails via WordPress. This usually the case if you’ve built your own server and installed PHP from scratch. Most hosting providers have already done this configuration for you, making sure their clients have a working WordPress email. There is an easy workaround to this. You can install a plugin called “WP Mail SMTP.” It requires that you use an external SMTP server. I use Google’s SMTP server. The only gotcha is you have to provide your Gmail username and password, because Google requires SMTP authentication to send out mails.

      Regarding your second question. There’s no need to use an app or command line to hash out your password. Just type in your password in “clear text.” To make your password encrypted, you have to choose “MD5” in the dropdown column just to the left of the password field. After submission, your password value will display a 32 character MD5 hash.