Move your world or server to a new host

Before you start

• Match the version. A world can move to the same or a newer Minecraft version, never to an older one. Set the server to at least the version the world was last played on.
• Match the software. A Forge or Fabric world with modded blocks needs the same mods on the new server, or those blocks disappear.
• Stop the old server before you download, so nothing is written halfway through the copy.

Route 1: move a whole server

Use this when you ran a server at another host or at home and want all of it here: the world, plugins, their settings and the player data.

1. At your old host, make one archive (a .zip or .tar.gz) of the server folder. Most hosts have a backup or download button that does this.
2. Get a download link to that archive. A link from the old host's backup page works, as does a shared link from a cloud drive that downloads the file directly.
3. In your new server, open the Files tab and find Move a server from another host.
4. Paste the link and start. The panel stops the server, makes a backup of what is there now, downloads the archive and unpacks it.
5. Check the files, then choose to put them in place. The server starts with your old world.

The backup made in step 4 is your way back. If something looks wrong after the move, restore it in the Backups tab.

Already uploaded the archive yourself? The same card lets you pick an archive that is on the server instead of a link.

Route 2: upload a singleplayer world

Your singleplayer worlds are on your computer in the Minecraft folder, under saves. Each world is a folder with a level.dat file inside.

1. Stop your server in the Console tab.
2. In Files, look at server.properties for the line level-name. By default it says world. That is the folder the server loads.
3. Rename the old world folder on the server, or delete it if it has nothing you need.
4. Zip your singleplayer world folder on your computer, upload the zip in Files and choose Extract on it.
5. Rename the extracted folder to exactly the level-name value, so world.
6. Start the server.

For large worlds, uploading through the browser is slow. Two faster ways: put the zip on a cloud drive and paste its download link under From link in the Files tab, so the server fetches it itself with no size limit, or set an SFTP password in the Files tab and use an SFTP program such as FileZilla or WinSCP with the details shown there.

Where the Nether and the End went

A singleplayer save, like a vanilla server, stores both extra dimensions within its one folder, in subfolders named DIM-1 (Nether) and DIM1 (End). Paper, Purpur and Spigot want them as folders of their own beside the overworld: world_nether and world_the_end.

When you upload a singleplayer world to a Paper server, Paper moves the two dimensions into their own folders on the first start. Let that start finish before you judge whether the Nether is there.

Bedrock worlds

A Bedrock world exported from the game is a .mcworld file, which is a zip under another name. Rename it to .zip, upload it in Files, extract it into the worlds folder, and set level-name in server.properties to the name of that folder.

After the move

• Join and walk around your builds. Check a chest or two.
• If the server moved from another host, check that plugins load: the console lists each one at startup.
• Tell your players the new address. How to join your server is a page you can send them.
• Make a fresh backup now that everything is in place.