Recover Lost WordPress Password

When you lost WordPress password, the easiest solution to retrieve password for your WP user would be using the email address for this specific WordPress user. If you have access to the administrator, you can reset password for all WordPress users from WP dashboard. If you lost password for WordPress admin, you can still reset the password. In this guide, we will be sharing with you two different ways to recover your lost WordPress admin password through email or MySQL database.

Retrieve WordPress Password through Email

Access your WordPress installation admin panel by visiting: http://www.yourwordpress.com/wp-login.php. (Replace with your true domain name above). There will be a link titled as “Lost your password?” below the WordPress login fields. Click on “Lost your password?”. You will find the option to retrieve WordPress password through username or email.

Enter your WordPress login username or the associated email address. Click Get New Password button, you will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Reset WordPress Password from Database

The password retrieval or reset through email may not work sometimes. For example, the mail function might have been disabled, so WordPress system can’t send out the email. Sometimes you may have a invalid email address associated with the WordPress user or you might have lost access to your email account.

Alternatively you can also reset password for your WordPress administrator or other users from WordPress database. You can access the MySQL database of your WordPress installation via PHPMyAdmin or other tools.

If you are using cPanel as the hosting control panel. Log on to your hosting account, browse to Databases > phpMyAdmin in cPanel. Click to select and open the WordPress database from the left panel of phpMyAdmin web interface. Find the default wp_users table.

You will then see the WordPress users list where you can manage all WordPress users. You can find user login, user password, user email and many other fields, see below screenshot. The first user with user_login as admin, ID 1 is the primary or administrator of your WordPress site. You can click the Edit button in front of the WordPress admin user to edit its user_pass field and replace the existing password with a new one.

From here, there are three steps to change or reset WordPress password. Firstly you have to select ‘MD5‘ from Function column, then input your new password for the WordPress user selected in the Value column. Finally click the Go button to save the change and quit.

Now you have recovered lost WordPress password, you will be able to log in your WP dashboard as administrator using your username and the new password which you have just reset.

Retrieve lost WordPress password from your web browser

Did you saved the WordPress logins in your browser before? If so, you can try to access the saved password in your browser. For example, you can follow this guide to view saved password in Firefox, or this tutorial to view saved passwords in Chrome browser.

Alternative way to recover WordPress Password

If you can’t remember the email address or WordPress username or you lost the email password, but you have access to the MySQL database, an alternative way to reset WordPress password is to log on the database and find out the email address for the WordPress admin. You can then retrieve WordPress password with the username or email address. If this email account is invalid, you can simply change the email account with a new and valid one. Then go to reset a new password through the new email.