How to reset a WordPress password

There are three ways to reset a WordPress password, and which one applies depends entirely on what you can still access. Start with the first one you can actually reach.

Method 1: the "Lost your password?" link

The normal route, and the one to try first every time.

1. Go to your login page

   This is your site's address followed by /wp-login.php, for example yoursite.com/wp-login.php.

2. Click "Lost your password?"

   It sits just below the login form.

3. Enter your username or email address

   Either works. WordPress looks up the matching account either way.

4. Open the email and follow the link

   It contains a one-time reset link. Follow it and you will be asked to set a new password immediately.

5. Choose a strong password

   WordPress suggests a random one and shows a strength indicator. Use a long, unique password rather than editing the suggestion down to something memorable.

Method 2: from inside the dashboard

If you are already logged in as an administrator and want to reset someone else's password — a colleague who is locked out, for instance — you do not need their email access at all.

• Go to the Users section of the dashboard.
• Open the account that needs a new password.
• Find the password field and click Generate Password, or type a new one directly.
• Save. The change takes effect immediately, and you can pass the new password to that person through whatever channel you trust.

You can also reset your own password this way if you are logged in but simply want to change it — there is no need to log out and use the "lost password" flow just to update a password you already know.

Method 3: change it directly in the database

For when you are locked out entirely: no working login, and the reset email is not arriving or is going to an inbox you can no longer reach. This edits the password stored for your account directly, from outside WordPress.

1. Open phpMyAdmin

   It is in the databases section of your control panel. See using phpMyAdmin if you have not used it before.

2. Select your site's database, then the wp_users table

   If you are not sure which database belongs to which site, the answer is the DB_NAME value in that site's wp-config.php.

3. Find your account and click Edit

   Your account is the row matching your username, in the user_login column.

4. Set a new value for user_pass

   Type your new password into the value field for user_pass.

5. Change the function dropdown next to it to MD5

   This is the step people miss. WordPress stores passwords hashed, not as plain text, and phpMyAdmin will happily save your new password as plain text unless you tell it to hash it first. Set the function for that one field to MD5 before saving.

6. Save, then log in with the new password

   Go back to wp-login.php and sign in as normal.

Locked out and not sure which method applies

Once you are back in

If you were locked out because you had genuinely forgotten the password, that is routine. If you were locked out because something changed the password without your knowledge — the admin email was altered, or you find a user account you did not create — treat it as a security incident rather than an inconvenience: change every password on the site, check the Users list for anything unfamiliar, and read securing a WordPress site and cleaning a hacked WordPress site before assuming the problem is only a forgotten password.