Mark Jackson is one of our member but he forgot his password for login to our website. We'll send him password to his e-mail address.

In this tutorial create 2 file and 1 database
1. forgot_password.php
2. send_password_ac.php

Database
1. members

$email_to=$_POST['email_to'];

"SELECT password FROM table_name WHERE email='$email_to'";

This is our database, table "Members" Mark jackson's password is "951412dwe" and his e-mail is "mark@phpeaststep.com"

--
-- Dumping data for table `test_mysql`
--

INSERT INTO `members` VALUES (1, 'Billly', 'Blueton', 'email_1@somewhere.com', '789789');
INSERT INTO `members` VALUES (2, 'Jame', 'Campbell', 'email_2@somewhere.com', '654123ddf');
INSERT INTO `members` VALUES (3, 'Mark', 'Jackson', 'email_4@somewhere.com', '951412dwe');

* replace email_1, 2 , 3 with your e-mail address for testing

<?

$host="localhost"; // Host name
$username=""; // Mysql username
$password=""; // Mysql password
$db_name=""; // Database name


//Connect to server and select databse.
mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect to server");
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

// value sent from form
$email_to=$_POST['email_to'];

// table name
$tbl_name=members;

// retrieve password from table where e-mail = $email_to(mark@phpeasystep.com)
$sql="SELECT password FROM $tbl_name WHERE email='$email_to'";
$result=mysql_query($sql);

// if found this e-mail address, row must be 1 row
// keep value in variable name "$count"
$count=mysql_num_rows($result);

// compare if $count =1 row
if($count==1){

$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result);

// keep password in $your_password
$your_password=$rows['password'];

// ---------------- SEND MAIL FORM ----------------

// send e-mail to ...
$to=$email_to;

// Your subject
$subject="Your password here";

// From
$header="from: your name <your email>";

// Your message
$messages= "Your password for login to our website \r\n";
$messages.="Your password is $your_password \r\n";
$messages.="more message... \r\n";

// send email
$sentmail = mail($to,$subject,$messages,$header);

}

// else if $count not equal 1
else {
echo "Not found your email in our database";
}

// if your email succesfully sent
if($sentmail){
echo "Your Password Has Been Sent To Your Email Address.";
}
else {
echo "Cannot send password to your e-mail address";
}

?>

I've got a lot of complains about security of sending the real password that exists in dababase. This may cause some troubles.

a new way to send password you can adapt from my verifying email tutorial

concept
- your user insert email to request password form
- find that email in our database
- if found, random a confirmation code and send it to email address to verify the email and also keep confirmation code in temp_database(don't forget to creates it first)
- when your user open email and click on confirmation link
- random and send new random password to email address again
- random new password you can use this code

<?

$random_password=md5(uniqid(rand()));
$new_password=substr($random_password, 0, 8);

echo $new_password;

?>

- After email has been sent, update an old password in database to a new random password.

- If you can wait i'm writing on it now, waits for a few day