WordPress:Resetting Your Password

To Change Your Password

To change your password in WordPress v1.2:

1. In the Admin Panel, go to PROFILE
2. Scroll down to the bottom and type in the new password in the two boxes provided
3. Click the UPDATE PROFILE button

Your new password takes effect immediately.

To change your password in WordPress v1.5:

1. In the Admin Panel, go to USERS
2. From the "Your Profile" tab, scroll to the bottom and type in the new password in the two boxes provided.
3. Click the UPDATE PROFILE button

Your new password takes effect immediately.

To change your password in WordPress v2.0:

1. In the Admin Panel, go to USERS (or Profile)
2. From the "Your Profile" tab, scroll down to the Update Your Password section and type in a new password in the two boxes provided.
3. Click the UPDATE PROFILE button

Your new password takes effect immediately.

Through the automatic emailer

If you know your username and the email account in your profile, you can use the "lost password" feature of Wordpress.

• Go to your Wordpress Login page (something like http://yoursite.com/wordpress/wp-login.php)
• Click on lost password
• You will be taken to a page to put in some details. Enter your user name and the email address on file for that account.
• Wait happily as your new password is emailed to you.
• Once you get your new password, login and change it to something you can remember on your profile page.

Note for 1.2.1 Users

There is a bug in 1.2.1 where the email you get includes an incorrectly encoded password. Your email will look similar to this:

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64
TG9naW46IERpYW5lDQpQYXNzd29yZDogZTIxMTQ2DQpodHRwOi8vZGlhbmV2LmNvbS9ibG9nL3dvcmRwcmVzcy93cC1sb2dpbi5waHA=

The fix for this is to upgrade your site to 1.2.2

Through MySQL Command Line

1. Get an MD5 hash of your password.
   • Visit MD5 Hasher, or...
   • Create a key with Python. or...
   • On Unix: echo -n <password> | md5sum
2. "mysql -u root -p" (log in to MySQL)
3. enter your mysql password
4. "use (name-of-database)" (select WordPress database)
5. "show tables;" (you're looking for a table name with "users" at the end)
6. "SELECT ID, user_login, user_pass FROM (name-of-table-you-found)" (this gives you an idea of what's going on inside)
7. "UPDATE (name-of-table-you-found) SET user_pass="(MD5-string-you-made)" WHERE ID = (id#-of-account-you-are-reseting-password-for)" (actually changes the password)
8. "SELECT ID, user_login, user_pass FROM (name-of-table-you-found)" (confirm that it was changed)
9. (type Control-D, to exit mysql client)

Note if you have a recent version of MySQL (version 5.x?) you can have MySQL compute the MD5 hash for you.

1. Skip step 1. above.
2. Do the following for step 7. instead.
   • "UPDATE (name-of-table-you-found) SET user_pass = MD5('"(new-password)"') WHERE ID = (id#-of-account-you-are-reseting-password-for)" (actually changes the password)

Through phpMyAdmin

This article is for those who have Wordpress:phpMyAdmin access to their database. Note: use phpMyAdmin at your own risk. If you doubt your ability to use it, seek further advice. WordPress is not responsible for loss of data.

Begin by logging into phpMyAdmin and click databases.

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• A list of databases will appear. Click your WordPress database.

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• All the tables in your database will appear. If not, click Structure.
• Look for wp_users.
• Click on the icon for browse or structure.

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The next screen lists the fields within the wp_users table.

• On user_login click browse and find the ID number associated with your login. Remember it.
• Go back to the wp_users table.
• On the user_pass field, click browse and find the ID number associated with your login.

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• Click edit.
• Next to the ID number is a long list of numbers and letters.
• Select and delete these and type in your new password.
• Type in the password you want to use. Just type it in normally, but remember, it is case-sensitive.
• In this example, the new password will be 'rabbitseatcarrots'
• Once you have done that, click the dropdown menu indicated, and select MD5 from the menu.

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• Check that your password is actually correct, and that MD5 is in the box.

• Click the 'Go' button to the bottom right.
• Test the new password on the login screen. If it doesn't work, check that you've followed these instructions exactly.

 

Using the Emergency Password Reset Script

If the other solutions listed above won't work, then try the Emergency Password Reset Script. It is not a Plugin. It is a PHP script.

Warnings

1. Requires you know the administrator username.
2. It updates the administrator password and sends an email to the administrator's email address.
3. If you don't receive the email, the password is still changed.
4. You do not need to be logged in to use it. If you could login, you wouldn't need the script.
5. Place this in the root of your WordPress installation. Do not upload this to your WordPress Plugins directory.
6. Delete the script when you are done for security reasons.

Directions for use

1. Download the script from Village Idiot WordPress Emergency Password Script.
2. Unpack the downloaded zip file.
3. Upload the file emergency.php to the root of your WordPress installation (the same directory that contains wp-config.php).
4. In your browser, open http://example.com/emergency.php.
5. As instructed, enter the administrator username (usually admin) and the new password, then click Update Options. A message is displayed noting the changed password. An email is sent to the blog administrator with the changed password information.
6. Delete emergency.php from your server when you are done. Do not leave it on your server as someone else could use it to change your password.