How to set the spawn point and spawn protection on a Minecraft server

Minecraft goes through these cases in order. The first one that fits decides where the player appears.

A spawn plugin can change this order. EssentialsX Spawn, for example, sends players who die to its own spawn; the EssentialsX section below has the settings for that.

1. Make sure you are an operator. Whitelist and operators shows how to op yourself in the Players tab.
2. Walk to the block where new players should arrive and look in the direction they should face.
3. Type /setworldspawn in chat. On 26.x and 1.21.9 or newer, /setworldspawn ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ also saves the direction you are looking in.
4. The game confirms the new world spawn with its coordinates.

In the Console tab you type commands without a slash. The console has no position in the world, so always give the coordinates. Press F3 in the game to read them for the block you stand on.

setworldspawn 120 72 -340
setworldspawn 120 72 -340 180 0

The second line is for 26.x and 1.21.9 or newer. Its last two numbers are the direction players face and how far they look up or down, where 0 looks straight ahead. On 1.21 to 1.21.8 the command takes a single direction number: setworldspawn 120 72 -340 180. Without a direction, players face south.

Players without a spawn point of their own rarely land on the world spawn block itself. The respawn radius game rule, 10 blocks by default, lets Minecraft pick a random spot up to that distance from it, on the highest block it finds there. With buildings at spawn, that highest block is often a roof or a tree.

The Game rules card in the World tab does not list this rule, so set it in the Console tab. Type the name without a value to see the current setting. A new value works straight away.

• At 0, players appear on the spawn block. When a player does not fit there, Minecraft moves them to a free spot close by.
• When the Default gamemode in the Settings tab is adventure, players always go to the spawn block, whatever the radius says.
• A world border closer to the spawn than the radius makes the radius smaller, so nobody spawns outside the border.

spawnpoint gives one or more players a spawn point without a bed. Use it for an event area, a hub or a player whose base is far from the world spawn. Like setworldspawn, it needs an operator.

spawnpoint Alex 120 72 -340
spawnpoint @a 120 72 -340 180 0

The first line sets the spawn point of one player. The second gives every online player the same point and a direction to face, on 26.x and 1.21.9 or newer. In the game, /spawnpoint with nothing after it sets your own spawn point where you stand. The point is saved in the dimension where the command runs.

• A bed or respawn anchor the player uses later replaces the point. Clicking a bed during the day also counts, and chat then shows "Respawn point set".
• When the spot gets filled with blocks, the player respawns at the world spawn instead, with the message "You have no home bed or charged respawn anchor, or it was obstructed".
• @a only reaches players who are online at that moment. Players who join later keep the world spawn.

Spawn protection stops players who are not operators from placing and breaking blocks in a square around the world spawn. Operators can always build there, so test a new value with an account that is not an op.

1. Open the Settings tab. Under Server settings, go to the Gameplay group, or type spawn in Search settings.
2. Change Spawn protection (blocks). The number is the distance from the spawn block in each direction; 0 turns the protection off.
3. Press Save changes.
4. Restart the server. Minecraft reads server.properties only when it starts.

The square is centred on the world spawn. Move the spawn with setworldspawn and the protected square moves along.

The protection only works while the server has at least one operator. It treats every player who is not an op the same, so a builder needs op to work there. For finer rules, such as a shop street where members may build, use a WorldGuard region as in stop griefing.

Vanilla Minecraft has no /spawn command for players. On Paper, Purpur and Spigot, the EssentialsX plugin together with its add-on EssentialsX Spawn adds /setspawn and /spawn. Install both plugins and restart; install plugins shows how.

Normal players need essentials.spawn before /spawn works for them. Permissions with LuckPerms shows how to give it to the default group.

EssentialsX Spawn settings in config.yml

These lines are in plugins/Essentials/config.yml. Edit the file in the Files tab and restart the server.

Stand on one block and run both /setspawn and /setworldspawn. First joins, respawns and /spawn then lead to the same place, and spawn protection covers that place.

On 1.21 to 1.21.8, the chunks around the world spawn stay loaded all the time, and moving the spawn moves that loaded area. Farms built in those chunks keep running with nobody online. After an update to 1.21.9 or newer, those farms only run while a player is close by.

1. Make a backup in the Backups tab, so you can go back to the old spawn. Back up and restore your server has the steps.
2. Close the server to players while you build with maintenance mode.
3. Set the world spawn, the respawn radius and spawn protection as described above.
4. Generate the land around the new spawn. The Pre-generate the world card in the World tab works around block 0, 0. For a spawn far from there, run Chunky from the console with chunky spawn, chunky radius 2000 and chunky start; pre-generate your world explains how to install and use Chunky.