Change an email password from cPanel: Email Accounts > find the address > Manage or the password icon > enter a new password > Update Email Settings. Every device or app using that mailbox needs the new password entered manually. Nothing updates automatically on your phone or desktop client.
Changing it from cPanel
Log in to cPanel (Services > your hosting > one-click login > cPanel), then open Email Accounts under the Email section. Find the address in the list and click Manage next to it (older layouts show a small key or password icon instead). You'll see fields for a new password and a confirmation field. Type a strong password, or use the generator button if one is offered, then click Update Email Settings or Change Password to save it.
This is the same screen used when creating the mailbox in the first place, just revisited later. If you don't remember which address needs the reset, the same Email Accounts list shows every mailbox on the domain along with its storage usage, which is a fast way to confirm you're editing the right one.
Changing it from webmail
If you're already logged into webmail and don't want to go back to cPanel, check whether your webmail client offers a password option under Settings. Not every setup exposes one, and it only works if you know the current password, since it doesn't go through cPanel's admin-level reset. If you've forgotten the current password entirely, or don't see the option, use the cPanel method above instead. See accessing your email through webmail for the login URLs and a rundown of which client to use.
Pick a password that will actually hold up
Email accounts are a common target for automated login attempts, so treat this password with the same care as your hosting or portal login. Longer is better than clever: a random 16+ character string beats a short password with substitutions. Avoid reusing a password from another account, and avoid anything tied to the domain name itself, since that's the first thing an attacker guessing at credentials will try. A password manager means you never have to type or remember it.
Update every device after changing it
Changing the password in cPanel or webmail does not push the update to your phone, Outlook, Thunderbird, or any other client already configured with the old one. Each of those will start failing to send or receive until you update the saved password manually:
- On a phone: open the account settings for that mailbox and re-enter the password under incoming and outgoing server settings.
- In a desktop client: the account settings screen has a password field for both IMAP and SMTP, sometimes shared, sometimes separate.
- In any app or script sending mail through this account (a contact form, a CRM integration): update the credential there too, or outgoing mail from that integration will start bouncing with authentication errors.
Server and port settings don't change when you reset a password, only the credential itself. If you need to double check host, port, or SSL settings while you're updating a client, that's covered separately, but the short version is IMAP on port 993 SSL and SMTP on port 465 SSL or 587 STARTTLS, using the full email address as the username.
If mail stops working after the change
The most common cause of "email broke after I changed the password" is a client or device that's still trying the old credential, sometimes silently, sometimes with a login prompt you missed. Check each device before assuming something is wrong server-side. If you're also seeing mail land in spam or bounce for unrelated reasons after a password change, that's usually a separate issue, worth checking with the Email Deliverability tool rather than another password reset.
If you've changed the password correctly, updated every client, and mail still won't authenticate, open a ticket from the portal (Support > New ticket). It's a real person on the other end, and they can check the mailbox status directly rather than you guessing at what's cached where.