Maybe you built something great in singleplayer and want your friends in it. Maybe you downloaded an adventure map. Here’s how to get your world to your server. You replace the world folder your server generated with the one you actually want.
It only takes a few minutes.
Before you start
First, stop your server. A running server is actively writing to the world folder, and swapping files underneath might corrupt something. Hit Stop and wait until the status reads STOPPED before you touch anything in the File Manager.
Then save a copy of what’s already there. Deleting the world folder is permanent, and if there’s anything on your current server you’d miss, now is the time to save it. Download it first, or take a backup from the Backups tab.
Also check your versions match. Look at the server jar in your File Manager, which will be named something like minecraft_server.26.2.jar. Your save needs to come from that version or an older one. Older worlds get upgraded automatically when they load, but a world from a newer version than your server will not open at all.
Finding your save folder
On Windows, press Windows and R together, type %appdata% and hit enter. From there open .minecraft, then saves. Every world you’ve played is a folder in here. Make a copy of the world you want to upload.
On Mac, the path is Library then Application Support then minecraft then saves. On Linux, it’s the .minecraft folder in your home directory, again with saves inside it.
If you downloaded a world from the internet instead, it’ll usually arrive as a zip. Extract it first, and check what’s inside. You want the folder that directly contains level.dat. Sometimes a download wraps the real world folder inside a second folder, and uploading the wrapper instead of the world itself is the most common reason this whole process fails.
Doing the swap
Now open the File Manager tab on your server. You’ll see a folder called world alongside your server files.
Delete that world folder using the trash icon on its row.
Now go to your copy of the save on your computer and rename it to world, exactly, in lowercase. The server looks for that name specifically, so a folder still called My Cool Base or SkyblockMap will be ignored and the server will just generate a fresh world instead.
Alternatively if you want to keep the world’s name, you can go to your server’s Properties tab and rename the level-name to the name of your world’s folder.
Back in the File Manager, click Upload and select your renamed folder. Give it time. World folders contain a lot of small region files, and a well-explored world can take a while to transfer.
Once it’s done, start your server. Join, and you should land in your world.
If something goes wrong
Here are some ways this can go wrong. You spawned in a brand new world. The server didn’t find your files where it expected them. Usually this means the folder wasn’t named world, or there’s an extra folder layer and level.dat isn’t sitting directly inside. Check the File Manager and confirm you can see level.dat one level down from the world.
The server won’t start. Check the logs folder for the reason. The usual culprit is a version mismatch, meaning your save came from a newer Minecraft version than your server jar.
Your Nether and End are empty. This one surprises people. Singleplayer keeps all three dimensions inside one folder, while a server splits them into separate world, world_nether, and world_the_end folders. So a straight upload of a singleplayer save brings the Overworld across and leaves the server to generate fresh Nether and End dimensions. Your builds in those dimensions are still in the files, just not where the server is looking, so it’s worth searching for a guide on moving them across if you have anything important out there.
Everything looks right but players can’t join. Check your whitelist. If the uploaded world came with its own settings, the player list may not be the one you expect.
One last thing
Once your world is up and running, it’s worth knowing that we back up your server every 24 hours and keep the last 7 days. If a future experiment goes badly, you can restore from the Backups tab.
Upload your world and get your friends in it.
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