There are several ways to change the administrator email address without using a third-party plugin.
In addition to admin_email, there is another value that needs to be changed. Regardless of the fact that you change the admin_email value in the database, a confirmation notification will remain if you do not change new_admin_email .
Update through the database:
In case of updating the option through the database, there are two options that need to be changed: admin_email and new_admin_email .
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = ' admin@example.com ' WHERE option_name LIKE 'admin_email' OR option_name LIKE 'new_admin_email';
note: although by default each WordPress database has the wp_ prefix for its tables, they can be changed, so check wp-config.php for the value of $table_prefix .
Update via options.php:
Another way, without using any plugin, is to access the secret page /wp-admin/options.php . However, there may be too many options, and due to the fact that for each server the $_POST variable limit is set differently, changing it in this way is completely impossible.
Learn more about max_input_vars https://www.php.net/manual/en/info.configuration.php
Update using functions.php in the active topic:
You can set one temporary code (and delete it after) in the functions.php of your active theme to update these parameters:
update_option( 'admin_email', ' admin@example.com ' );
and
update_option( 'new_admin_email', ' admin@example.com ' );
Put them in some admin_init action call admin_init .
Update via wp-cli:
Another way to update admin email is via wp-cli (if you have access to the ssh terminal):
wp option update admin_email ' admin@example.com '
and
wp option update new_admin_email ' admin@example.com '
see more about wp option commands:
https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/option/update/