How to reset your WP Password in PHPMyAdmin

MarkB — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:21:41 +0000

I am using XAMPP to run a local version of WP on my machine for theme testing etc. I haven’t installed the PHP mail() function because its not a feature I regularly use. This presented a problem when I misplaced my login details for my local WP install and couldn’t run the ‘Lost Password’ feature. However I found a way to reset my WordPress password using a neat website and PHPMyAdmin. Here’s how.

Firstly, I logged into PHPMyAdmin and browsed the users table. I edited the entry for my ‘admin‘ account and found the ‘user_pass‘ field.

This field will by default have an encrypted version of your password, something like $P$BERsVRczS226JkUY29j72YuVSzm3yP/ .

Instead of trying to decrypt this, I just generated a new MD5 password and pasted the encrypted version in this field.

I encrypted a new password using the iWebTool website. Type in the password you’d like to have, and then click ‘Encrypt’. That then generates your MD5 password. For example I typed in ‘wpguru‘ as my password and that generated ‘f1c061320553d089aa807e975e2a936f‘.

All you need to do then is paste that encrytped password into the WP database field and presto, your lost password problem is fixed.

The WordPress Guru » Database

How to reset your WP Password in PHPMyAdmin