Uploading a single player world to your Minecraft server

You can move a world you built in single player to your server in a few minutes. The one thing to get right is the folder layout.

Where the game keeps your world

If you play through a launcher with instances (Prism, CurseForge, Modrinth App), saves is inside that instance folder. The quickest way to find it is from the game: Singleplayer, select the world, Edit, Open World Folder. The right folder contains a level.dat file and a region folder.

Three things to check first

• Game version. The server should run the same version as the world, or a newer one. A world from a newer version will not open on an older server. You change it in Version and engine.
• Mods. A modded world needs the same mods on the server, otherwise blocks and items from those mods disappear on the first load.
• Backup. If the server already has a world you want to keep, make a backup in Server backups.

Uploading step by step

1. On your computer, pack the world folder into a .zip file. Pack the world folder itself, not the whole saves.
2. Stop the server in the panel. Uploading onto a running server ends with your files being overwritten at its next save.
3. In Files, delete or rename the current world folder (on Paper also world_nether and world_the_end).
4. Upload the archive to the main server folder and unpack it.
5. Rename the unpacked folder to world, or put its name in level-name in server.properties.
6. Start the server and join the game.

After unpacking, check that level.dat sits directly in world, not in world/My World/level.dat. That one folder too deep is the most common mistake: the server does not find the world and quietly generates a new one.

Archives over a hundred megabytes are easier to upload over SFTP connection with FileZilla or WinSCP, because a browser can drop large uploads.