Resetting WordPress User/Admin Passwords from the Database

This is a quick and easy one, but I’m bound to forget it somewhere along the way…

Resetting a WordPress user password from the database can be useful when you’ve misplaced the password - particularly for an admin user. Here’s how you do it.

WordPress passwords are simply hashed with the md5 algorithm, so it’s pretty simple. In your console (I’m using bash here), run:

$ echo -n newpassword | md5sum
5e9d11a14ad1c8dd77e98ef9b53fd1ba

This is your hashed password. Make sure to include the -n option to omit the trailing newline from your input string.

Next, login to your mysql client:

$ mysql -u db_username -p database_name
Enter password: ***********

Once in, run:

mysql > UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass = '[hash]' WHERE user_login = '[username]';

This assumes you have the wp_ table prefix that WordPress uses by default.

For example:

mysql > UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass = '5e9d11a14ad1c8dd77e98ef9b53fd1ba' WHERE user_login = 'admin';

You should now be able to login with your new password, in this example ‘newpassword’.