How to reset the Joomla administrator password

This article describes how to reset the Joomla administrator password.

Unlike some other content management systems, Joomla does not permit you to reset an administrator password by e-mail. Therefore, you must manually reset the password in the database.

Resetting the password in the database

To change the administrator password directly in the database using phpMyAdmin, follow these steps:

1. Log in to cPanel.
   If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
2. In the Databases section of the cPanel home screen, click phpMyAdmin.
3. In the left-hand pane of phpMyAdmin, click the Joomla database. A list of tables in the database appears.
   Typically, the Joomla database is username_joomXXX, where username represents your cPanel username, and XXX is a three-digit number.
4. On the top menu bar, click SQL.
5. Copy and paste the following statement into the SQL query text box. Replace NewPassword with the new password:

   UPDATE users SET password = MD5('NewPassword') WHERE username = 'admin';

   • This command assumes that you want to change the password for the admin user account. To change the password for another account, change the username field to the correct value.
   • If your Joomla installation uses table prefixes, make sure you add it to the users table. For example, if your Joomla table prefix is jm_, you would type the following command instead:

     UPDATE jm_users SET password = MD5('NewPassword') WHERE username = 'admin';

6. Click Go. phpMyAdmin updates the database with the new password.
7. You should now be able to log in to Joomla as the administrator using the new password.