How to schedule automatic restarts and commands on a Minecraft server

1. Open Settings and find Automatic saves and restarts.
2. Switch Automatic restart on.
3. Choose Daily or Mondays, and the hour.
4. Save.

At that time the server warns players in chat, saves the world and comes back within a minute or two. On a modded server it also clears memory that mods leak over a long uptime. For most servers this is all you need.

The same card sets how often the world is saved: Use Minecraft default, Every 15 minutes, Every 30 minutes or Every hour. More frequent saves mean less lost work after a crash.

• Players see the warning in chat. Then the world is saved, the server closes and everyone online is disconnected for a moment.
• The console shows the server stopping and starting again. Players can join as soon as it says Done.
• On a server network, players who came in through the network address wait in the lobby while one server restarts.
• With Discord notifications on in Settings, your Discord gets a message when the server is up again; see link your chat to Discord.

The Players tab has a card called When your players are online. It shows the average number of players per hour over the last 30 days, in your own time zone, and names the quietest moment: "A good moment for a restart." A new server needs a few days before the picture fills in.

A schedule runs something on the server at a fixed time. First you make the schedule, then you add what it should do.

1. Open the Schedules tab and go to New schedule.
2. Give it a Name, such as Nightly restart.
3. Under How often, choose Every day, Every week, Every 6 hours or Every hour, and for a daily or weekly schedule the hour and the day.
4. Leave Only run when the server is online ticked for a restart, so a server you stopped on purpose stays off.
5. Click Create.

Under each schedule you see when it ran last and when it runs next. Check next after you make one, so you know it will run at the time you meant.

A schedule without tasks does nothing. The panel says so under the schedule until you add one.

Each task has a Do what and a Wait first (s): the number of seconds after the previous step. That lets you build a countdown. Add these tasks to the schedule, in this order:

Click Add a task under the schedule, pick the kind, fill it in and click Add task. Console commands are typed without a slash, just like in the console.

Players see the messages in chat, the world is saved, and the server restarts five minutes after the first warning.

• A message every hour: say Vote for the server and join our Discord with Every hour. Keep it short and not too often, or players tune it out.
• A restart every 6 hours on a busy modded server that grows heavy during the day.
• Clear dropped items with kill @e[type=item] a minute after a warning in chat, if items lying around cause lag. It also removes the items of a player who just died, so warn first. See reduce lag for the causes worth fixing.
• Start the server in the morning and stop it at night with two schedules and the Start and Stop power actions, for a server that only a class or a club uses. Untick Only run when the server is online on the start schedule, because the server is off when it runs.

A schedule can make backups too. The task Create a backup makes one at the time you choose, for example every Sunday night.

1. Make a new schedule called Weekly backup with Every week, a day and an hour when few players are online.
2. Untick Only run when the server is online, so the backup is also made when the server happens to be off.
3. Click Add a task, choose Create a backup under Do what and click Add task.
4. Keep at least half an hour between this schedule and your nightly restart, so the server does not restart while the backup is still being written.

When all backup slots are in use, a backup from a schedule takes the place of the oldest one. Download a backup you want to keep for longer, as described in back up and restore your server.

• Run now runs the tasks at once. Handy to test your countdown, but warn your players first.
• Pause stops a schedule without losing it, and Activate turns it back on. A paused schedule is marked Paused.
• Delete removes the schedule and its tasks.
• Advanced (raw cron) is for people who know cron and want times the simple choices do not cover, such as twice a day.

Advanced (raw cron) has five fields: minute, hour, day/mo for the day of the month, month, and day/wk for the day of the week, where 0 is Sunday. A * means every, and */6 means every sixth.

Once saved, the schedule shows in plain words when it runs next. If that line does not match what you had in mind, fix the fields before the first run comes round.