Minecraft – Where is the world saved on a Minecraft server, and how to back it up

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I've found some related answers: I think I get maps and worlds, and I now know where single-player saves are located. I'm not sure I completely understand this answer about copying a multiplayer map to single-player, but in any case, I'm only concerned about multiplayer survival mode:

Suppose I'm running a Minecraft server on Windows for myself and friends. Which files should I save to "back up" the state of the world at a particular point?

For example, I might want to do this just when I need to shut off the server, to be sure not to lose anything; to save one world and go back to it later, while starting a new one for now; or to restore the world from an earlier state, when we hadn't flooded the house with lava yet.

Best Answer

The world data, which also includes player inventories, is saved to a folder in the current working directory of the server.

The name of said folder depends on the level-name setting in server.properties, and defaults to world. Thus, you can start a new world and toggle between the saves by simply changing this setting.

Vanilla server commands related to saving/backups:

  • /save-all - forces the server to save.
  • /save-off - disables saving. You should definitely execute this before making a backup of a running server to ensure that the server doesn't save while you're copying, which could result in a corrupt backup.
  • /save-on - re-enables saving.