How to reset the password of Sitecore Admin User?

Have you lost or forgotten your Sitecore admin user’s password? In this blog, we will explore how you can reset the password. Execute at your own risk. I have had success with this approach.

Connect to the core database and execute the needed SQL script. The following options are available:

Reset Password

This will default the password to b.

UPDATE aspnet_Membership 
SET Password='qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=', 
PasswordSalt='OM5gu45RQuJ76itRvkSPFw==', 
IsLockedOut = 0, 
FailedPasswordAttemptCount = 0 
WHERE UserId IN (SELECT UserId FROM aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin') 
                    

Reset Password with Email Recovery (9+ only)

This will help you setup email recovery with password reset.

UPDATE aspnet_Membership 
SET Password='qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=', 
PasswordSalt='OM5gu45RQuJ76itRvkSPFw==', 
IsLockedOut = 0, 
FailedPasswordAttemptCount = 0, 
Email='YOUR_EMAIL-ID-HERE ', 
LoweredEmail = 'YOUR_EMAIL-ID-HERE' 
WHERE UserId IN (SELECT UserId FROM aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin') 
                    

Unlock Admin User

If you know the password but just need to unlock, I had a similar situation where the client had the wrong password and was trying to login with the old password, that could result in the account getting locked.

UPDATE aspnet_Membership 
SET IsLockedOut = 0, 
FailedPasswordAttemptCount = 0 
WHERE UserId IN (SELECT UserId FROM aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin') 
                        

Through these given examples with solutions, I believe you would be able to successfully reset the password of your Sitecore Admin User.

Mitesh Patel || Chief Technology Officer (CTO) | ADDACT

Sitecore AI Certified || XMCloud || OrderCloud Certified

Mitesh Patel is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Addact with 12+ years of experience in enterprise CMS, digital experience platforms, and cloud-native application development. He specializes in Sitecore, Contentful, Strapi, Kentico, Umbraco, Contentstack, and .NET, helping organizations build scalable, secure, and future-ready digital solutions through modern CMS, headless architectures, AI-driven experiences, and cloud technologies.