How To Backup Your Minecraft Server

How to Backup Your Minecraft Server – Introduction

When playing Minecraft, players come across wondrous journeys filled with dangerous creatures and mystical lands. From the mighty fights against bosses like the Ender Dragon to traversing the Deep Dark caves filled with treasures. After such amazing adventures into the unknown of Minecraft, saving those memories is important to ensure they are never lost. This can be done with Minecraft backups, not only protecting your worlds but also ensuring you can always restore them.

Minecraft backups are like a storage container, filled with files of your world and the player data of players who built and played in them. When it comes to backups, there are server backups and world backups. In this guide, we will show you how to backup your Minecraft server and world so that you will always be able to keep them safe!

Minecraft Server Backups

Automatic Server Backups and Restorations for Minecraft Servers

When you rent a Minecraft server with Nitrado, you’ll have access to free automatic backups of your server. These backups are taken daily to ensure you always have a restore point when you need it. Below, we’ll show you how to find and restore these Minecraft server backups!

• Start by going to your Minecraft server webinterface. If you’re planning to restore a backup, stop your server first.
• Next, on the left side of your server panel under “Tools”, click on “Restore Backup”. This will open the “Backup Management” section of your server where you can see and restore backups.

• In this server backups area, you can find backups for each Minecraft type you’ve played. To restore a backup, press the “Restore” button next to that backup.

• Confirm the restore once more by pressing “Restore” again.
• After a few moments, the backup restore will complete. Once the restore is complete and your server is online, you’ll be ready to play your server!

How to Manually Backup Your Minecraft Server

• Head to your Minecraft server webinterface and turn off your server.
• Using a program such as FileZilla, access the FTP of your Minecraft server.
• Next, on your computer we recommend creating a folder in a safe location to store the server backup. For our example, we will be creating a folder named “server-backups” to store the world in.
• Afterward, in the FTP program drag and drop your Minecraft server folder to the backup folder you created on your computer. Since our example server is using “Minecraft (Bukkit / Spigot)”, our server folder is named “minecraftbukkit” and that is what we’ll need to backup. Allow all of the files to backup to your computer. Depending on the server size, this can take quite some time.

• Once the transfer is complete, you’ll have a server backup on your computer!

Do you need to restore your server backup? You can follow the steps below to restore your server world and you can also upload individual files and folders to your server using your FTP.

How to Backup Your Minecraft World

Are you looking to only backup your Minecraft game server world? That’s possible and helps to avoid all of the extra server files that you may not need. Follow these steps to backup your Minecraft world:

• To begin, head to your Minecraft webinterface and stop your server.
• Once your server is off, using a program such as FileZilla, access the FTP of your Minecraft server.
• Inside the FTP of your server, look for the world you’re wanting to backup. In our example, we will be backing up a world named “world”.

• Next, in the FTP program you’re using, find/create a safe folder to store this backup on your computer. For our backup “world”, we will be storing that in a folder named “server-world-backups” on our desktop.

• After creating that new folder, drag and drop the world from your server to that folder. That world will begin backing up on your computer. Depending on the size of the world you’re backing up, this can take a while but it’ll be well worth it to keep your world safe.

• Finally, after the world transfers to your computer, you’ll now have your own backup of the Minecraft world from your server. You can keep those files safe and even share them with your friends if they want to see the world!

Need to restore a Minecraft world backup you created? We’ll show you how to below!

Restoring Your Minecraft World Backup to your Server

• Firstly, ensure that your Minecraft server is stopped and that you have a backup of your Minecraft world ready to restore. In our example images, we will be restoring a world named “world”.

• With that Minecraft world ready, the next step is to log in to your server’s FTP using a program such as FileZilla.
• After logging in to the server’s FTP, select, drag, and drop that Minecraft world folder you backed up into your server files. Allow the files to fully upload. Similar to backing up a Minecraft world, if the world is large this may take some time.

• Once the world has fully uploaded to your server files, go back to the webinterface of your Minecraft server. You’ll need to set that world’s name on the server so that it loads correctly.
• On your Minecraft server panel to the left, select “Config Files” under the “Settings” section.
• In the Config Files section, use the dropdown to select and load the “server.properties” file.

• While editing the server.properties file, locate the “level-name” setting and set that to the name of the world you have uploaded. For the world in our example, we’re setting this to the name “world”.

• Finally, save changes and then start your Minecraft server. Your server will now load your world backup and you can continue your adventure where it was left off!

Minecraft Backups – FAQ

Can I restore old worlds to a newer version of Minecraft?

Yes, you can restore old Minecraft world backups to a newer version on your server in most cases. It’s important to know that with each Minecraft update, new mobs, blocks, and items have resulted in changes to the game and item ids. These changes mean that blocks and items in your world may be changed or deleted when updating from an older to a newer version of Minecraft.

To best prevent this, you can use the “Version Change” option on your Minecraft webinterface to change your server to the same version that your world was made on.

Why isn’t my world loading after being restored?

If after restoring your world to your Minecraft server, the world still isn’t loading, this could be caused by a few different reasons.

• Firstly, it’s important to ensure that the Minecraft world you’re restoring fully uploads to your server. When a world fails to upload all of its files, this can result in missing regions which will regenerate as brand-new chunks. If that happens, removing the world and doing the restore again will ensure you have all of the files uploaded.
• Next, the world name in your server’s “server.properties” file needs to be the same as the world backup you restored. When a world folder name contains spaces or special symbols, this will stop the server from reading the world folder. If this happens, renaming the world folder to one word such as “myEpicServerworld” and then setting that name in your server settings will resolve this issue.
• Lastly, there can be situations where older Minecraft worlds will not work on newer versions of Minecraft. This problem also occurs when attempting to upload modded Minecraft worlds on a different version type for Minecraft like Vanilla. To best help with these situations, loading the correct Minecraft type and version for that world will ensure the world’s backup loads.

Start a Minecraft Adventure, Backup, and Continue Later

Now that you have a Minecraft server and world backups, you no longer will need to worry about losing your files. Whether you need to stop your server and resume later, experience griefing and need to restore your builds, or are trying to restore a world you played on 10 years ago. With reliving old memories, you can create new ones too by inviting friends old and new to enjoy the fun! Keep your server safe with backups so that you and your players can focus on what’s most important, enjoying infinite worlds on your Minecraft server!

Rent a Minecraft server today!