Uploading an existing world

Find your world folder

A Minecraft world is just a folder. What you're looking for is the one containing level.dat: that file is how the server recognises a world at all.

From singleplayer

On Windows, paste that path straight into the address bar of File Explorer. Each subfolder there is one world, named the same as it is in your saves list.

From another host

Download the world folder from their file manager or over SFTP. If they only give you a full-server backup, unzip it locally and pull out the world folders, you don't want their jar or their config files.

Understand the nether and end split

This is the part that catches nearly everyone. Singleplayer and multiplayer store the other dimensions in different places, and if you ignore that you'll arrive with a fresh nether and wonder where your base went.

My World/
├── level.dat
├── region/          ← overworld
├── DIM-1/           ← nether
└── DIM1/            ← end

world/
└── region/          ← overworld
world_nether/
└── DIM-1/           ← nether
world_the_end/
└── DIM1/            ← end

So before uploading, restructure a singleplayer save like this:

1. Rename the world folder to world.
2. Create world_nether and move DIM-1 inside it, keeping the folder name.
3. Create world_the_end and move DIM1 inside it, keeping the folder name.
4. Copy level.dat into both new folders as well, the server expects one in each.

Zip it up

Uploading one archive is dramatically faster than uploading forty thousand small region files, and far less likely to fail halfway.

Select your world, world_nether and world_the_end folders, right-click, and create a .zip. On Windows that's Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder.

Worth doing while you're here: delete session.lock if you spot one. It's a leftover from your own client having the world open and it occasionally causes a complaint on first boot.

Stop the server first

Not restart, stop. Press Stop on the console tab and wait until the status dot goes grey.

While you're stopped, take a backup of what's already there (Backups → Create Backup). It costs nothing and gives you a way back if the upload turns out to be the wrong folder.

Upload and extract

Open Files and make sure you're in the server root, the folder with server.properties and plugins/ in it, not inside any world folder.

1. Delete the existing world, world_nether and world_the_end folders, if you're replacing them.
2. Click Upload and pick your zip. Large worlds take a while, leave the tab open.
3. Click the zip's row menu and choose Unarchive.
4. Delete the zip afterwards so it isn't eating your disk quota.

You should end up with exactly this in the server root:

plugins/
world/
world_nether/
world_the_end/
server.properties
eula.txt
server.jar

Point the server at it

The server loads whichever folder level-name names. Open Files → server.properties and check it matches:

level-name=world
level-type=minecraft:normal
level-seed=

If you kept the original folder name instead of renaming to world, put that exact name here, spelling and capitalisation included. The nether and end folders then have to be named after it too, as <level-name>_nether and <level-name>_the_end.

Start up and check it landed

Hit Start and watch the console:

[09:15:02 INFO]: Preparing level "world"
[09:15:06 INFO]: Preparing spawn area: 92%
[09:15:09 INFO]: Done (7.884s)! For help, type "help"

Then join and check, in this order:

• Are you standing somewhere you recognise? If it's a random beach, the wrong folder loaded.
• Walk to a build you know. Chunks load as you go.
• Go through a nether portal and confirm your old nether is there, not a fresh one.
• If you had an end base, check that too.

Troubleshooting