In the era of highly developed technology and dangerous cyber threats, “How to change WordPress password” is the question that all WordPress web owners have to solve. If you want to save and secure our website, you should have your WordPress admin password protected from hackers or unwanted people, even harmful wares and bots. To stop this from happening, you must change your passcodes or even reset them. When receiving an account for your website, you will have to change or reset the password, too. Therefore, let us help you with a tutorial on changing passwords on your WordPress site to make it a safer and smoother website.
WordPress Passwords: The Differences between Changing and Resetting.
At first glance, you might think that changing and resetting are the same slice of bread. However, it’s not as you see. They differ in some aspects.
When changing a WordPress password, it will start with the step “Forgot the password?” or some similar features. Then, you will get to some verification popup, page, or form to confirm our pass changes. Next, WordPress will take care of the remainder. Moreover, changing a password happens when you already know your current passwords.
Talking about resetting, it will begin with the feature “Change passwords” or “Swap passwords”. All you have to do is click “Swap passwords”, then fill out the form popup with another password and finish replacing it.
When Should You Change or Reset Your WordPress Password?
In reality, there are many occasions on which you need to make it go.
WordPress Account Access
The web owner gives you an account and you want to change the password for safer and catchier. Or, someone not you can access via your account. Maybe you just want to change it. There will be 2 ways for you: via “My Profile” in WordPress admin or WP-CLI.
WordPress Email Access
In this case, you forget your current pass. However, you have access to the current email registered in your WordPress account. We give you some possible options: access via “Lost password?” in the WordPress login page, using C-panel, resetting through phpMyAdmin, and using FTP.
Website Owner/Admin Ability to Reset WordPress User’s Password
This time, you will have the power to change other people’s account passwords. Certainly, you will reset their passwords. There are 2 ways: resetting from the WordPress User panel or resetting through phpMyAdmin.
WordPress Access Without Email
Imagine when you can’t access your WordPress account and you also have not linked any email with your WordPress account yet. Here is something you can do to change/reset your password: use C-panel, use the phpMyAdmin, or use the FTP.
Now, let’s get to the guide for changing WordPress passwords.
How to Change WordPress Password via the Dashboard Page
Well, this will be the easiest method if you want to change your password. First, log in to your account and get to the WordPress dashboard. Then, move to “Users” where you will see “Profile. Click it and when the Account Management panel shows up, choose “Set new password” of the “New password” option. Therefore, you may select any password you like. At the same time, the system will examine the strength of the new password (Weak, Medium, or Strong). In case you choose a password considered as “Weak”, you will have to fill a form to especially verify. At last, click “Update Profile” to complete.
Also, if your account is logged in by many devices unwantedly, you can click “Log out everywhere else” for WordPress change password.
WordPress Email Access When Losing Passwords
Here, you can use this method when you have used an email to log in to your WordPress site and forget/miss the current password. On the login page choose “Lost your password?” next to the “Login” button. Choose it and you will see a popup page where you will fill in a brand new password. Then, the link to reset the password will receive an email to reset. in the end, you can log in to the website with the old account and new passcode. That is how you make a WordPress reset password with an email.
Changing/Resetting Other Account’s Password with Administrator Access Permission
This time, you will not be a WordPress user, but a WordPress administrator. Besides, some users ask you to reset WordPress password or you will do it yourself to make them safer. Therefore, here is how you will do it.
Go to the WordPress admin panel and look for the “Users” section. Choose the wanted account, and click “Edit” under the name of the user to see the user’s edit panel. Navigate to the “Account Management” and choose the “Generate Password” button. Immediately, you will make a brand new passkey and can also edit it to fit your plans. Of course, be assured about the pass’s strength!
Next, press the “Update User” button, and the user will receive an email with the new pass’s information. Otherwise, users can reset the passwords themselves through “Lost password?” Besides, you will get a notification about the change(s).
WordPress Password Changing with WP-CLI
WP-CLI stays as a good option for changing passwords. Of course, you will have all same abilities as the normal ways.
To get started, log in to your site via WP-CLI as you usually do. Next, look for the root directory and get all the user information with the comment “wp user list”.
Check the account needing to reset WordPress password, note the user’s ID, and type this command “wp user update 1 –user_pass=password”. Next, you will change the “password” into the planned passkey. Of course, remember to check for the new pass’s strength (should be stronger than the old one). Well, you can exchange “1” with the noted user ID.
WordPress Password Reset/Change with phpMyAdmin
With phpMyAdmin, you will change or reset WordPress password straight from your core database. Indeed, you should only apply this method if you have no email access and the site sends emails wrongly. On the other hand, this way is useful when you are installing a local development.
Warning: Changing or resetting on phpMyAdmin is very dangerous if you are not well-prepared. Your site can break down and not fully recover. If you are not confident doing this, you should get yourself a developer to help you with that.
First, log in to the phpMyAdmin, choose your database on the left section, and later choose the table “wp_users”. Besides, this file may have the name “wp56_users” on some websites. Now, take a look at the rows and columns. Find the column beside the admin’s user(s), look for the exact user account, and choose “Edit”. Next, enter a brand new value in the column “user_pass”. Choose “MD5” in the function column, and press the “Go” button at the end of the page. Otherwise, you may use the updates immediately when returning to your WordPress site login form/popup.
Well, that’s all about changing or resetting the WordPress passwords with phpMyAdmin.
WordPress Access Tool: SQL
SQL is an alternative way to change or reset password WordPress. Before running, check for the latest update the values “new_password” and “admin_username”. Next, run this code in the SQL page:
UPDATE `wp_users` SET `user_pass` = MD5( ‘new_password’ ) WHERE `wp_users`.`user_login` = “admin_username”;
Also, SQL can be started from the phpMyAdmin.
WordPress Password Reset Widget: FTP
To start working with FTP, login to your WordPress website via the FTP client or an FTP-included code editor and look for your site’s root directory. Next, select the folder “wp-content/themes” and the current theme of your site, then search for the file “functions.php”. To be careful, make a copy of the file “functions.php” for backup plans. Then, type “wp_set_password( ‘password’, 1 );” in the 1st line’s “<?php”. The first part is the new passkey and the second one is the ID of the user. Now, save it and upload it to your current website by overwriting the file’s current version. Then, you should log in to your site to see whether you can access it or not.
Later, remember to check the file “functions.php” to delete the above code line. If you don’t delete it, your site will reset the password every time you reload the page. Therefore, this action will put your site in a weak and easy to collapse status.
Reset Passwords with cPanel
For cPanel users, this part will be very helpful if you meet a case of WordPress forgot password. With this method, you can only reset the admin password but not the users’. Also, you must have downloaded WordPress with a cPanel installer to do it.
To begin, open the cPanel and look for the “Softaculous” or “Auto-installer” area in the WordPress manager based on your hosting service. In the WordPress installer page, find the installation needed for pass changing. Choose the edit button, navigate to “Admin Account” and make a new passcode. To finish, you will log in to your website with the new pass to check the access ability.
Emergency WordPress Password Reset Script
Consequently, an emergency WordPress reset script will go in when all the above methods fail. You will need the exact admin username to receive an email to the admin’s mailbox. If the email is jeopardized, this solution should not be applied.
There will be many different scenarios. Mostly, you can apply the “lost password” button on the login page if you have the email and username. In case you have to reset the passcode but wp-admin breaks down, make a file name “emergency.php” in the root directory, and copy, and paste the emergency password script into that file. Then, open the browser, and type in http://website name.com/emergency.php (website name.com is your website’s address). Look for the section “WordPress Administrator”, type the new pass into the “password” area, and choose “Update options” to finish.
The site will show you 2 notifications after changing the password: one popup on the site and one email to your mailbox. Afterward, you must delete the “emergency.php” file to prevent others from changing your password.
That’s all about how to change password in WordPress with an emergency script.
Conclusion
We hope you will find a suitable option to change or reset the WordPress password through this article.
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