How to Send a WordPress Password Reset Email

In this guide, we’ll help you get a WordPress password reset email. With that email from your WordPress site, you should be able to recover your WordPress password.

How to Change a WordPress Password by Email

If you’re unable to log into a WordPress site because you forgot your password, and you have access to the email address you used to register the account, the best way to go about recovering your password is to use the simple reset password email flow that is baked into WordPress.

This video explains how to do it. Scroll down for the text version.

How to Reset a WordPress Password by Email

Here are the steps to take in order to reset your WordPress password by email:

1. On the WordPress site you’d like to be able to log in to. Go to the login page.
   If you don’t know how to find it, it’s usually at example.com/wp-login.php, but we do have a dedicated guide on the topic of finding the WP login page.
2. On the page (right under the box asking for your credentials), click the Lost your password? link.
3. On the linked page, enter either the email address or username connected to the account you’re trying to access. (You’ll need access to the email address connected to the account, which WordPress will send a password reset email to.)
4. After submitting the form, check your email inbox. It should come pretty quick, but if you’re waiting more than a minute a look at your “Spam” folder. These emails often end up there.
5. Click the link from that email. It should take you to a page on your site where you’ll set a new password for your account.
6. All that’s left to do is to go to the login page again and log in with the new password.

What to Do if the Reset Password Email is Not Working

Resetting your password by email may fail for you, for a few main reasons:

1. Your email client filters out password reset emails as spam. (Emails may land in your spam folder, or they may not even reach any folder at all, depending on the situation.)
2. Your WordPress site can’t send email because of server configuration.
3. You don’t remember or have access to the email address associated with any WordPress user on the site.

So if the WordPress password reset email flow isn’t working for you, the first thing to do is to check your spam folder. The problem may be as simple as the emails hitting that folder instead of your inbox.

If that doesn’t fix things, there’s another way you can change your WordPress password: using a database tool called phpMyAdmin. We have a dedicated guide that covers how to reset your password using phpMyAdmin.

Note: For the phpMyAdmin method to work, you’ll need access to your website’s database through your hosting control panel, where phpMyAdmin is typically available.

And there you have it!

With the WordPress password reset email flow above you should be able to log back into your site. If that doesn’t work for you, check out the phpMyAdmin method.