// Minecraft

Moving your Minecraft server to a new host, step by step

31 August 2026 · 5 min read
Moving your Minecraft server to a new host, step by step

Moving to a new host feels like the scariest thing you can do with your Minecraft server. Years of building, player statistics, an economy that is finally balanced: the thought of losing any of it stops plenty of server owners from switching — even when they have wanted to leave for ages. The good news: a Minecraft server is, in the end, just a folder full of files. Take that folder with you in full, and only switch over for good once a test has succeeded, and you lose nothing at all. In this guide we walk through the move step by step, including the pitfalls you want to avoid. We will say nothing further about your current host; what matters to you is that the switch goes off without a hitch.

Exactly what you need to take with you

Everything that makes your server yours lives in the root folder. The most important parts:

  • The world folders. On vanilla it is all in one folder (world by default). If you run Paper, Spigot or Purpur, the Nether and the End are split off into world_nether and world_the_end — three folders, then, not one. This is far and away the most common mistake during a move: copy only world and you arrive on the new server with a fresh Nether and End.
  • The plugins or mods folder. Not just the jar files, but every subfolder as well: that is where your plugins keep their configuration and their data, from LuckPerms ranks to economy balances.
  • The config files in the root folder. Think of server.properties, bukkit.yml, spigot.yml and the Paper config folder, plus ops.json, whitelist.json and banned-players.json.
  • Player data. Inventories, positions and statistics live in world/playerdata and world/stats, so they travel along with your world folder. But watch out: plenty of plugins store player data in their own subfolder, or even in a database — more on that shortly.

Not sure whether you need something? Take it anyway. Storage is cheap; rebuilding a lost configuration from scratch is not.

Step 1: make a complete backup over SFTP

First stop your server, or at the very least stop it writing to disk with save-off followed by save-all. Copying a world while the server is actively writing to it is asking for corrupted chunk files — and you only find out when it is too late.

Then connect to your current server over SFTP (using a program like FileZilla or WinSCP; you will find the login details in your current host's panel) and download the entire server folder to your own PC. Yes, absolutely everything — including the folders you are not quite sure what they do. Depending on the size of your world this can take a while; a heavily played survival world quickly runs to several gigabytes. When it is done, check that the download is complete by comparing the file count and total size against what is on the server. This local copy is your safety net: whatever goes wrong later on, you still have all of it.

Step 2: pick exactly the same version on the new host

Order your new server and choose the same server type and the same Minecraft version you are running now: Paper to Paper, Forge to Forge, 1.21 to 1.21. A move is not the moment to upgrade as well. Once a world has been opened in a newer version there is no going back — and if something then goes wrong, you have no way of knowing whether the move or the upgrade is to blame. Move first, then upgrade later (with a fresh backup).

Not sure which version you are running? Check your current server's startup log; the exact version number and the server software are spelled out there.

Step 3: upload everything and test — while the old server keeps running

Upload your complete backup to the new server over SFTP. Before you start it, check two things: is the server software on the right version, and does level-name in server.properties point to the name of your world folder? Then start the server and take your time over a proper test:

  1. Read the startup log. Every plugin that fails to load and every config that is not right is spelled out there.
  2. Log in and walk around your main world, the Nether and the End. Are your builds the way you left them?
  3. Check your inventory, your ender chest, and your rank and permissions.
  4. Test the plugins that genuinely matter: economy, claims, homes, shops.

And here is the most important sentence in this whole guide: your old server just keeps running in the meantime. Players notice nothing, and you get to test in peace. If something does not work, you have all the time in the world to figure it out without a single player being affected. Only once everything on the new server checks out do you move on to the switchover.

Step 4: switch over with minutes of downtime at most

If your players connect through a domain name (play.jouwserver.nl, say), the switch is all but invisible. A domain like that points to your server through an A record or an SRV record (_minecraft._tcp). A day beforehand, lower that record's TTL to 300 seconds or so, so the change is picked up within minutes rather than hours.

The switchover itself then goes like this:

  1. Announce a short maintenance window and pick a quiet moment.
  2. Lock the old server down: whitelist on or server off, so nothing changes any more.
  3. Download the world folders and player data one more time and upload them to the new server. People have been playing since you took your test backup, after all; this final sync makes sure nobody loses progress. Your configs and plugins are already in place, so this goes much faster than the first time.
  4. Switch the DNS record to the new server's address and start it up.
  5. Keep the old server around for a while, switched off. Only cancel it once the new one has been running smoothly for a few days — that is your last safety net.

If your players connect to a bare IP address with no domain, there is no way around sharing the new address on your Discord. Treat it as a good moment to set up a domain with an SRV record after all: the next time something changes, nobody will notice a thing.

The classic pitfalls

Credit where it is due: most moves work first time, but when they do go wrong it is almost always one of these three.

  • Forgotten config files. Anyone can manage to bring the world along; forgetting the permissions, the whitelist and that one tweaked plugin config is the classic slip-up. That is exactly why step 1 has you copy the entire server folder instead of a hand-picked selection of "important" files.
  • Version mismatches. Opening a 1.21 world on a different server version or a different server type gives you error messages at best, and silent damage to your world at worst. Keep the version and the software exactly the same throughout the move.
  • Player data outside the world folder. Economy, quest and statistics plugins often keep their data in their own subfolder under plugins, and sometimes in a MySQL database. That database is not in your server folder: export it (make a dump) through your current host's panel and import it on the new server. Forget this and everyone starts out with a balance of zero.

Dreading it? You are not on your own

You do not have to puzzle all this dragging of folders and records out by yourself. Switch to a Minecraft server from MC-Node and our support thinks along with you if you get stuck somewhere along the way. Your server runs on our own hardware with NVMe storage in the Previder data centre in Hengelo, with DDoS protection included. Packages start from just € 0,50 per month (reckon on around € 1,10 per GB of RAM) and everything is cancellable monthly — which is rather reassuring when you have just come from somewhere else and want to see how you like it first.

Further reading

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