MySQL to Find/Select WordPress Users with Administrator Capabilities

Every once in a while I find myself with access to a WordPress installation’s database before I have an Administrator account created for me. When I need to find which account users have an Administrator role, I use the following MySQL query to get select that list:

SELECT u.ID, u.user_login
FROM wp_users u, wp_usermeta m
WHERE u.ID = m.user_id
AND m.meta_key LIKE 'wp_capabilities'
AND m.meta_value LIKE '%administrator%'

Note: the query above assumes a database prefix of “wp_”. Also, be sure to make sure the meta_key wp_capabilities above uses the database prefix.

After running the WordPress database query above, you’ll see the user accounts that are Administrators. It will look something like this:

+------+------------+
| ID   | user_login |
+------+------------+
|    1 | edward     |
|    2 | jimmyjam   |
|    3 | run        |
| 1405 | slickrick  |
| 1658 | e40        |
+------+------------+

Ok, I’m not sure if I should have used a “JOIN” instead, but this is a query that will work when you have MySQL access to your WordPress database and you need a list of user accounts that are Administrators. This is how you select user accounts Administrators with MySQL on WordPress database.