# How to Change the Password of a User in PostgreSQL

> Use the ALTER USER or ALTER ROLE statement to change/modify the password of a Postgres user. You can use the VALID UNTIL clause to specify the password’s expir…

Postgres' **ALTER USER** and **ALTER ROLE** statements are used to change/modify a user's password. To change the user password in Postgres, all you need to do is, use the **ALTER USER** or **ALTER ROLE** command and provide the new password within the single quotations.

This blog post will present detailed knowledge about how to change the user password in Postgres. So, let’s begin!

 **How to Change/Modify the User’s Password in Postgres?**

Use one of the below-given syntaxes to change the password of the Postgres user.

 **Syntax 1:**

Use the ALTER ROLE statement with PASSWORD attribute and specify the new password within the single quotation:
    
    
    ALTER ROLE user_name 
    WITH PASSWORD 'modified_password'
    VALID UNTIL ‘expiry_date_time’;

 **Syntax 2:**

Use the ALTER USER statement with PASSWORD attribute and specify the modified password within the single quotation:
    
    
    ALTER USER user_name
    WITH PASSWORD 'modified_password'
    VALID UNTIL 'expiry_date_time';

In the above-given syntaxes:

\- ALTER ROLE and ALTER USER are the Postgres statements that modify the role/user.  
\- User_name is a user to be modified.  
\- Specify the modified password of your choice in place of the modified_password.  
\- VALID UNTIL is optional and used to specify the password validation until a specific date and time.

 **Note:** ALTER ROLE and ALTER USER statements are used to alter the attributes of a user's account. Only superusers can change the privileges and passwords of the user’s account.

 **Example 1: How to Change User Password Using ALTER USER command?**

To get the list of Postgres users, firstly, execute the below-mentioned command:
    
    
    \du

Suppose we need to change the password of a user named “command_prompt”. To do so, we will execute the ALTER USER Command as follows:
    
    
    ALTER USER command_prompt
    WITH PASSWORD 'cp@54321'
    VALID UNTIL '2022-12-31 11:59:59';

In the above snippet, we utilized the ALTER USER command to change the password for the “command_prompt” user. The specified password will be valid until “2022-12-31 11:59:59”:

The ALTER ROLE message in the output proves that the password has been changed successfully. Let’s run the “\du” command followed by the user name to see the user details:
    
    
    \du command_prompt

The output proves that the password has been changed successfully, and it will be valid until the specified date and time.

 **Example 2: How to Change User Password Using ALTER ROLE command?**

Let’s change the Password of the “command_prompt” user one more time using the ALTER ROLE statement:
    
    
    ALTER ROLE command_prompt
    WITH PASSWORD 'cp12345678'
    VALID UNTIL 'infinity';

In the above statement,

\- We changed the user’s password via the ALTER ROLE statement.  
\- Next, we specified “infinity” in the VALID UNTIL clause, so the specified password will never expire:

From the output, it can be seen that the password has been changed successfully. Let’s explore the user’s details via the below command:
    
    
    \du command_prompt

If you are a superuser in PostgreSQL, you can change a user's password this way.

 **Conclusion**

Use the **ALTER USER** or **ALTER ROLE** statement to change/modify the password of a Postgres user. To do so, use the **ALTER USER** or **ALTER ROLE** command and provide the new/modified password within the single quotations. Additionally, you can use the VALID UNTIL clause to specify the password’s expiry date and time. In such a case, the password will be valid until the defined date/time. This blog post has explained how to change the user’s password in PostgreSQL via the ALTER ROLE and ALTER USER statements.

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