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Change a WordPress Email Address in the Database

You can change a WordPress user’s email address directly in the database. This can help if the user cannot receive password reset emails because the address on the account is wrong or no longer available.

Be careful when editing a database. A wrong change can break the website or stop users logging in.

To change the email address:

  1. Log in to the 4UHosting client area at https://clients.4uhosting.co.uk.
  2. Choose My Services.
  3. Find the hosting service and select Manage.
  4. Select Login to cPanel from the left side.
  5. Open phpMyAdmin.
  6. Select the database used by the WordPress site.
  7. Open the table ending in _users.
  8. Find the user you want to update and select Edit.
  9. Change the value in the user_email field.
  10. Save the change.

The table prefix may not always be wp_, so the users table may have a different name, such as abc_users.

If you are not sure which database the site uses, check the wp-config.php file for the database name before making changes.