How to upload your own world to your server

You can play on a world you made in singleplayer, or bring one over from another host. The trick is getting the folders in the right place.

1. Find the world

Singleplayer: in Minecraft, select the world, click Edit, then Open World Folder. You want that whole folder. It contains level.dat and a region folder.

Another host: download the world folder (often world) using their file manager or SFTP.

2. Stop your server and take a backup

Stop the server from the Console tab, then take a backup on the Backups tab. If anything goes wrong you can put things back.

3. Upload it

For a small world, open the Files tab and upload the folder's files. For anything big, use SFTP: it handles large uploads and whole folders. Your SFTP details are on the server's Settings tab, and FileZilla or WinSCP both work.

Upload it next to the existing world, as a new folder, for example myworld. Inside it you should see level.dat straight away, not another folder first. myworld/level.dat is right; myworld/myworld/level.dat won't load.

4. Point the server at it

Edit server.properties and set:

level-name=myworld

Start the server. It loads myworld instead of world.

The Nether and the End

Singleplayer and vanilla servers keep the Nether and End inside the world folder (DIM-1 and DIM1). Paper, Purpur and Spigot keep them as separate folders next to it: myworld_nether and myworld_the_end.

If you upload a singleplayer world to a Paper server, Paper moves the Nether and End out into their own folders the first time it starts. That's normal. Going the other way (Paper to singleplayer), move the DIM-1 and DIM1 folders from inside myworld_nether and myworld_the_end back into the main world folder.

It loaded a brand new world instead

The server couldn't find level.dat where it expected, so it made a fresh world. Check:

• level-name matches the folder name exactly, including capitals.
• level.dat is directly inside that folder.
• The upload finished. A half-uploaded region folder loads with missing chunks.

Delete the new world the server just made, fix the layout and start again.