How to update WordPress admin email via a database

The WordPress admin email is the address associated with the primary administrator account of your WordPress website. It is used for important notifications such as updates, new registrations, and password reset emails.

If this address is incorrect, you may not receive these notifications, causing you to miss important information.

If you don’t have access to the WordPress admin dashboard, you cannot update the admin email directly. In which case, you can update it via the database assigned to your website.

Let’s take a closer look at how to update the admin email.

To update a WordPress admin email via the database, you first need to identify the database name for your website. To do this, open File Manager and navigate to the document root of your website:

Note: If you don’t remember which folder is the root one of your website, you can check it in the "Domains" menu > look for the domain name in question > its root folder will be displayed under the "Directory Root" column. Click on it and you’ll be redirected to the folder automatically:

Inside the domain root folder, locate the wp-config.php file. Right-click on it and select the “View” or “Edit” option:

Scroll down to the “// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //” line, and there you will find the required database details:
Next, open the phpMyAdmin interface and click on the database assigned to your WordPress website (in this example, nctests_wp185). Once the database opens, select the wp_options table:

Note:wp_ is the default prefix for WordPress database tables, but it may be different in your installation. You can check the database prefix for your website in the wp-config.php file, on the line that starts with $table_prefix =.

To update the admin email, double-click the current email value, delete it, and enter the new one:
Press Enter on your keyboard to save the changes.

Note: The admin_email row may not always appear on the first page of the wp_options table. In that case, use the Search option to locate it:

Select the wp_options table, then click Search in the top menu:
Enter admin_email in the "Value" field for option_name, then click Go:
This will display the row for admin_email:

Alternatively, you can update the admin_email value using an SQL query. To do this, open your website’s database and select the SQL option from the top menu:

Enter the following query to update the admin_email:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = 'new@domain.com' WHERE option_name = 'admin_email';

Where:
new@domain.com should be replaced with your new admin email address.
wp_ should be replaced with the table prefix used in your database.

In our example, it will look like this:

Click Go to run the query.

That’s it!

Updated

10/9/2025

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