How To Change Or Reset WordPress Passwords

How to Change or Reset WordPress passwords

Everyone occasionally loses access to one or more accounts, and it can even happen on your own hosted WordPress website.

It’s typically straightforward to reset your WordPress passwords using the built-in password reset function, which you can use from the login page.

However, if one is unable to utilize the WordPress passwords tool for whatever reason, things might become complicated.

As a result, understanding how to manually reset your WordPress passwords might be useful, especially if one needs to WordPress reset password of Admin.

Changing vs. Resetting the WordPress Passwords

One is responsible for WordPress reset password. One should be able to simply change their WordPress passwords if they have access to the website and profile settings.

In other words, you update your WordPress passwords once you know what it is.

One needs to get the system to WordPress reset password for you, or ask an administrator if you don’t have one. The major reason for resetting a WordPress password is that you don’t know the current password.

1. WordPress Passwords Change with Account Access

If one knows what one’s current WordPress passwords is, but wants to change it. Perhaps an administrator has given one a new WordPress account, and the passwords isn’t secure enough or you won’t be able to remember it.

Perhaps you wish to update your WordPress passwords because it has been compromised.

Assuming you have access to your WordPress site and know the current password, you have two options:

• To change your WordPress passwords, go to the My Profile page in the WordPress admin.
• Access your site through WP-CLI and change the WordPress passwords with a command.

2. Changing or Resetting a WordPress Passwords through Email

In the following case, you don’t remember the current WordPress passwords but have access to the email address you used to create your WordPress user account.

You’ll have to change the WordPress passwords because you don’t remember the previous one, but it should be simple.

Users have the following options:

• In the WordPress login screen, click the forgotten password link.
• If you utilized an auto-installer to install WordPress, WordPress reset password in cPanel.
• In phpMyAdmin, reset the password. If you use Cpanel, use the Cpanel dashboard to reset the password in phpMyAdmin.
• To reset the password, use FTP.
• Use the Emergency Password Reset Script to reset your password.

3. WordPress Passwords Change or Reset Without Email Access

Assume you no longer have access to the email address linked to the account. Here are some approaches to consider:

• In cPanel, reset the WordPress passwords.
• In phpMyAdmin, reset the WordPress password. If you have cPanel, you can quickly reset your password.
• To reset your password, use FTP.

4. Reset the Password for Your WordPress Website Using phpMyAdmin and the MySQL Database.

One may also update or reset the WordPress passwords by logging into cPanel and using phpMyAdmin. If one can’t remember or access the admin email, one may use this approach to acquire the reset link.

The actual procedure may differ slightly based on the hosting company you select. If you require particular instructions or support, it’s recommended that you contact your host.

It’s not the most user-friendly solution and should only be used if you’ve worked with databases before.

We also recommend that you back up your database before changing your WordPress passwords. If something goes wrong, you’ll have a recent version to restore from.

Related: Backup WordPress Website Through cPanel phpMyAdmin

To begin, sign in to your cPanel account (or hosting control panel). Then, from the dashboard, select phpMyAdmin from the Databases area.

One notices a list of databases on your left after logging into your phpMyAdmin account. Select your WordPress database. Then, on the wp_users row, click the Browse icon to the right.

This will open a new window with a list of all registered users on your WordPress site. Locate the username for which you wish to alter the WordPress password, then choose Edit.

Navigate to the user_pass section on the following screen. A complicated stream of characters and numbers follows it.

Select and change this encrypted password with the new WordPress passwords. Then, from the dropdown option, select MD5. This option encrypts your WordPress passwords for you.

When you’re finished, click the “Go” button at the bottom of the page to save your changes. You should now be able to access your WordPress admin panel with your new WordPress password.

Related: Reset WordPress Admin Password Through phpMyAdmin

5. Use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

If you don’t have access to your site through cPanel, you may log in to your site and reset your WordPress password using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client like FileZilla.

Related: How to create File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for WordPress Hosting

It should be noted that this procedure requires modifying your site’s functions.php file. Before making any changes, make a backup of your site!

To connect to your site, you’ll also need your FTP credentials. This information is available on your hosting account.

If you’re unsure where to look, see the documentation provided by your host.

To connect to your website using FTP, you’ll need the following:

• Hostname
• Username
• Password
• Port

Navigate to your website’s base directory (public HTML), then to your themes folder (wp-content themes), after connecting through FTP.

Open the folder containing your current theme (for example, twenty-twenty-one), then locate the functions.php file, right-click on it, and choose Download.

You’ll need to make some modifications to the code in this file using your preferred text editor. You must either add or modify the following line of code:

1 edit the wp_set_password

Next, you want to set it as: 

1 wp_set_password (‘password, 1’)

The sample new WordPress password in this example is “password,” but you may modify it to whatever you wish. The “1” represents the WordPress user’s ID.

When you’re finished, save the file and FTP it back to your theme’s folder. You should be able to access your WordPress site now.

Conclusion

Knowing how to manually reset your passwords might come in handy if you get locked out of your WordPress website and don’t have access to your email account.

This isn’t something that happens very often, but it never hurts to be prepared.

 

If you want to get WordPress hosting for your website, Exabytes experts can help you set up your WordPress website. To find out more, contact us now.

Related articles:

13 Best WordPress Website Security Tips & Tricks

Why Do I Need an SSL Certificate for Better Website Security