How to recover mysql root password in MacOS

Question

I start my MAMP and try to connect to my MySQL server via localhost or 127.0.0.1, I tried all the possible password that I think it is correct, but

Answer 1

This is how you can do it in macOS Sierra, probably you install it via pkg and in the system preferences have an icon for MySQL, something like this:

If is up and running open a terminal and run this command:

pgrep -fl mysql

That will help you to find the path of mysqld and the current command used to start the server, the output could be something like this:

6283 /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld --user=_mysql --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin --log-error=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.pid

Next step is to stop MySQL, you can do this by clicking on the System Preferences menu and click on the Stop MySQL Server button, Once is stoped within a terminal you will need to start again the server but with some extra options, something like this:

sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld \
  --skip-grant-tables \
  --skip-networking \
  --user=_mysql --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin --log-error=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.pid

It is indeed the same command from the output of pgrep -fl mysql but in this case, you just need to add:

--skip-grant-tables --skip-networking

After doing that you will notice that the menu from the System Preferences is Green again and MySQL should be up and running, now you can try to login and change password:

mysql -uroot
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR root@'localhost' = PASSWORD('secret');
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit

Stop and start again MySQL from the System Preference panel and it should be working now with the new password.