How to upload a map (world) to a Minecraft server

You can upload your singleplayer world or a downloaded map to the server in a few minutes, in your browser or over SFTP.

1. Find the world on your computer

• Windows: press Win+R, type %appdata%\.minecraft\saves and confirm.
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves.

Every world is a separate folder with a level.dat file inside. Unpack a downloaded map first and find the folder with level.dat in it.

2. Zip the world

Right-click the world folder and choose Compress to ZIP file (Windows) or Compress (macOS).

3. Upload and extract

1. Stop the server in the Console.
2. Back up the current world in Backups.
3. In the File manager click Upload files and choose the ZIP archive.
4. On the uploaded archive choose Extract.
5. Check that level.dat sits directly in the world folder, not in a folder inside a folder.

A very large map is easier to upload over SFTP, e.g. with FileZilla or WinSCP. The connection details are in File manager → SFTP access.

4. Point the server to the world

The server loads the world from the folder named in level-name (world by default). You have two options:

• delete the old world folder and name the new folder world;
• or enter the new folder's name in level-name in Server settings → Advanced.

Paper and Purpur keep the Nether and the End in separate folders (world_nether, world_the_end). On the first start they move them out of a singleplayer world themselves.

5. Start the server

The server version must be the same as the one you played the world on, or newer. A world from a newer game version will not load on an older server.

Downloading the world from the server

Select the world folder in the File manager, choose Compress and download the archive. You can also download a whole backup in Backups.