Locked out of WordPress admin, and the reset email never comes

First, the reset link

1. Open your login page (yoursite.com/wp-login.php) and click Lost your password?
2. Enter your username or the email address on the account, then wait for the email. Check spam.

The email goes to the address saved on the account. If that was a former designer's address, or the server cannot send mail, it will not reach you. Some servers send no mail at all: Amazon Web Services blocks outbound mail on port 25 from its EC2 servers by default, for one. Then use one of the ways below.

Free fix, through your hosting

Each of these needs the login to your hosting account. Use whichever your host gives you.

phpMyAdmin

1. Log in to phpMyAdmin from your hosting account, click Databases, then your WordPress database.
2. Find wp_users (if your site was set up with a different table prefix, it ends in _users) and click Browse.
3. Find your username under user_login and click Edit.
4. In user_pass, delete the long string and type your new password. It is case-sensitive.
5. In the function menu on that row, choose MD5, then click Go. Log in with the new password.

Plesk, WP Toolkit

1. Open WordPress in Plesk and find your site.
2. Click Log in below the website screenshot. It opens your admin as an administrator.
3. Go to Users, All Users, click your username, then Generate Password (or type your own in the box) and Update User.

WP-CLI, if your host gives you SSH

1. In the folder WordPress is installed in, run this and find your user:wp user list
2. Set the new password, with your username, email address or user ID in place of yourusername:wp user update yourusername \ --user_pass='a-new-password'

Once you are back in, open your profile and put in an email address you read, so the next reset email reaches you.

These steps follow WordPress's guide Reset Your Password, WP-CLI's page for wp user update, WordPress's page on wp-config.php for the table prefix, Plesk's guide to WP Toolkit and AWS's article on port 25, all read 26 October 2026.

If someone else holds the hosting

If a former designer or company set the site up, the hosting login may be theirs. Ask them to do one of the three above for you today, and then for these, so it does not happen again:

1. Your own login to the hosting account, not a shared one.
2. The hosting account in your business's name, or in writing who holds it and how to reach them. Whoever holds the server holds the website.
3. A backup of the files and the database, copied somewhere you control.

If you would rather we do it