How to edit Minecraft server files in the control panel

Open your server in the control panel and click Files in the menu. You start in the top folder. Folders come first and end with a slash; click one to open it. In the bar above the list, / takes you back to the top folder and a folder name jumps back to that folder. The .. row goes up one level.

Where to find the main files of a Minecraft server

1. Open the folder that holds the file: the top folder for server.properties, or plugins/LuckPerms for config.yml of LuckPerms.
2. Click Edit next to the file. A text editor opens over the page, with the path of the file at the top.
3. Change the lines you need.
4. Press Save. The panel shows Saved with the path of the file and closes the editor.
5. Click Restart at the top of the panel, so the server loads the new values.

Cancel closes the editor without saving, and so does a click on the dark area around it.

Which files have an Edit button

Edit appears next to text files with these endings: .properties, .yml, .yaml, .json, .toml, .txt, .log, .cfg, .conf, .ini, .lang, .md, .csv, .xml, .html and .css.

Other files have no Edit button. A .jar or .dat file is not text. A text file with another ending, such as .json5 or .snbt, you download, change on your computer and upload again.

A text file over about 2 MB opens cut short, with the warning Shown truncated, saving would cut the file, download it instead. Save is then off; download the file to read all of it.

Uploading, renaming and extracting work while the server runs. Some files the server keeps in memory and writes back itself, so for those it matters whether the server is on when you save.

If a plugin puts its old values back after a restart, stop the server, save the file and start it again. Some plugins write their settings to disk when they shut down.

For operators, the whitelist and bans the Players tab is quicker than the JSON files; see whitelist and operators. Many server.properties lines, such as Difficulty and Default gamemode, are also fields under Server settings in the Settings tab.

One wrong character can stop the server or a plugin from loading. Each type of file has its own rules:

The log names a file that does not load, often with the line number: open logs/latest.log with Edit and look for the file name. Minecraft server won't start explains the most common startup errors.

1. Open the folder the file belongs in, for example plugins for a plugin .jar.
2. Click Upload and choose one or more files on your computer.
3. Keep the tab open while the bar shows Uploading to, with the folder name and the percentage.
4. When Upload complete appears, the files are in the list.

• Upload takes files, not folders. Zip a folder on your computer, upload the .zip and use Extract on it.
• For anything over a few hundred megabytes, such as a world, From link below is faster.
• Install plugins, install mods and install datapacks show which folder each type of file goes in.

With From link the server fetches a file itself, with no size limit. Use it for a world archive or the server pack of a modpack.

1. Open the folder where the file should land.
2. Click From link, paste a direct download link that starts with https and press Continue.
3. Under Save it as, check the file name. The panel fills it in from the link.
4. Press Start download. A large file keeps downloading in the background; open the folder again to see its size grow.

The panel refuses a link that:

• does not start with https;
• has a username or password in it;
• does not point to a public address;
• would save a program file, such as a .jar, .sh or .mrpack. Plugin and mod .jar files go through Upload, or the catalog in the Plugins or Mods tab.

Moving a whole server from another host has its own card in this tab; see move your world to our server.

New folder

1. Open the folder where the new folder should go.
2. Click New folder, type the name under Folder name and press Create folder.

Rename a file or folder

1. Click Rename next to the file or folder.
2. Type the new name under New name and press Rename.

• A name can be up to 180 characters and cannot contain / or \.
• File names on the server are case sensitive. Minecraft looks for server-icon.png, so Server-Icon.png is ignored.
• Rename keeps a file in the same folder. To put a file in another folder, download it, upload it in the other folder and delete the old copy.

Tick the box in front of one or more files or folders. Two buttons appear at the top: Zip and Delete, each with the number of items you ticked. Zip packs them into one archive in the same folder, ending in .tar.gz and with the date and time in its name.

You can only tick items in one folder at a time. Opening another folder clears the selection.

Extract appears next to an archive. It unpacks the contents into the folder you are in. The archive stays, so delete it afterwards when you no longer need it.

Check what is inside an archive before you extract it in the top folder. If it starts with one folder, you get that folder. If it holds loose files, they land next to server.properties.

Minecraft packs the log of each earlier day into a .log.gz file in logs. Only latest.log opens straight away with Edit.

Every file has a Download button. Folders have none, so to download a folder, such as a plugin folder or world:

1. Stop the server first if the folder is world, so the copy is complete.
2. Tick the folder and click Zip 1.
3. Click Download next to the new .tar.gz file.
4. Delete the archive on the server when the download is done, so it does not take up space.

A copy of the whole server is easier from the Backups tab; see back up and restore your server.

1. Tick the files or folders you want to remove.
2. Click Delete at the top. The button shows the number of items, for example Delete 3.
3. Confirm in the window that opens. Its button says Delete 1 item, or for example Delete 3 items.

Deleted files are removed at once; the Files tab has no bin. A folder goes with everything inside it, so make a backup first if you might need it again.

Who can edit and delete files

Staff you add in the Staff tab need the Files right to browse, edit, upload and download files. Deleting is a separate right, Delete files. Give someone access to your server explains both.

Each file change shows in the Activity tab with the time and who made it. See what changed on your server shows how to read that list.