--- title: "How to move an existing Minecraft world to your server" description: "What you actually have to grab (the Nether gets forgotten), the three accepted archive shapes, and the two mistakes that give an empty map." url: https://tickserv.com/en/guides/move-minecraft-world site: "TickServ (https://tickserv.com)" lang: en published: 2026-07-17 updated: 2026-08-22 games: [minecraft] --- # How to move an existing Minecraft world to your server You already have a world — on your PC, over LAN, or at another host — and you want to pick it up elsewhere without losing a single build. Here's what to grab, how to package it, and the two mistakes that leave you staring at an empty map. ## What a Minecraft world actually is A world isn't a file, it's a **folder**. It contains: - `level.dat` — the heart of it: seed, spawn point, time, game rules. This is what makes a folder a world. - `region/` — the terrain chunks already generated, as `.mca` files. This is the bulk of the size. - `playerdata/` — each player's inventory and position, one file per UUID. - `data/` — maps, raids, village state. And above all: **the Nether and the End aren't always in the same place.** Depending on the Minecraft version and the server software, they live either _inside_ the world folder or _beside_ it — typically `world_nether/` and `world_the_end/` on a Bukkit, Spigot or Paper server. This is the classic omission: you migrate the Overworld, everything works, and three days later someone steps through a portal into a brand-new Nether. The rule that holds whatever the version: **take the world folder AND any sibling folder whose name starts the same way.** Then, once imported, walk through a portal before you invite anyone — that's the only check that proves all three dimensions came along. ## Where to find it - **From a single-player game**: `.minecraft/saves/` (on Windows, `%appdata%\.minecraft\saves`). Everything is in one folder there. - **From another host**: in its file manager, at the server root. Look for the folder containing `level.dat`. It's usually called `world`, but its name depends on the server's `level-name` setting — it can be anything. **Stop the server before you download.** A world copied while it's running can be copied half-done: chunks still in memory aren't on disk yet. On a running server, type `save-all flush` and wait for the confirmation before copying. ## Packaging the archive: three accepted shapes This is where older tutorials make life hard. You do **not** need to reproduce a precise folder tree. Three shapes are recognised and put back in place automatically: 1. **A `world/` folder** (with `world_nether/` and `world_the_end/` alongside if you have them) → left as-is. 2. **The folder's contents**, zipped without the folder itself — so `level.dat` at the archive root → filed into `world/`. 3. **A folder with any name** containing `level.dat`, for example `MySurvival/level.dat` → renamed to `world/`, the name the server expects. If the shape matches none of the three, the archive is left **untouched** rather than rewritten on a guess: better an import that doesn't load and gets fixed than an archive reorganised blind. Accepted formats: **`.zip`** or **`.tar.gz`**. The cap is **4 GiB per archive** — comfortably above a normal vanilla or modded world, but it isn't unlimited: a map explored for years across thousands of blocks can exceed it. If so, drop the dimensions you don't need, or prune the most distant regions before zipping. > A technical detail, because it matters for privacy: the `.zip` → `.tar.gz` conversion happens **entirely in your browser** — unzipping, building the archive, compressing. Your world passes through no intermediate server before it reaches your own storage. ## Importing When creating the Minecraft server, use the **"Import a world"** field. The archive is unpacked on first boot, and your game resumes exactly where you left it. The import stays available afterwards from **"Manage world"** on the server card, with the server stopped — along with downloading your save and the list of automatic backups: ![The "World" panel of a TickServ server: download your save, import a .zip archive containing the world folder, and the list of automatic backups](https://tickserv.com/shots/monde-light.webp '512x587') ## The two mistakes that give you an empty map **The version doesn't match.** A world opened by a newer Minecraft version won't go back down: the chunk format evolves and the conversion is one-way. Note the exact version you were playing before you migrate — and if you're moving up a version, do it **after** the import, once you've confirmed the world loads. **The world was modded, the server isn't.** An All the Mods or Cobblemon world contains blocks and entities vanilla Minecraft has never heard of. Loaded without its mods, it loses them — permanently. Recreate the same context: paste the **same modpack**, in the **same version**, before importing. See the [modpack installation guide](https://tickserv.com/en/guides/install-minecraft-modpack). ## Once it's in The world is archived **before every shutdown** and restored on the next boot, with a `save-all flush` immediately before archiving so no minute stays in memory. An automatic backup runs **every 30 minutes** while you play, of which the **last 5** are kept. Storage is free, server off included. And if the import didn't give you what you expected, you can start again from your own archive: it stays downloadable. The other games work the same way, with their own files — the two `.db` and `.fwl` files for Valheim, the save directory for Palworld, the game `.zip` as-is for Factorio. The import screen tells you what to grab for the game you picked. > [Create your Minecraft server](https://tickserv.com/en/games/minecraft) and import your world at the creation step.