How to Download Your Minecraft Server World and Play It in Singleplayer

First things first: which folder is your world

The server's world is the folder named in the level-name line of server.properties. It's almost always called “world”. The level.dat file has to be inside it: if you don't see it, that's not the one.

Stop the server before downloading it, or at least type save-all in the console and wait a few seconds. If you copy it while it's saving, you can end up with parts of the map half written.

Downloading it from the NapNodes panel

The panel doesn't download whole folders, only files: that's why you compress it first and then download the file. It comes as a .tar.gz, which Windows 11 opens with a double-click; on earlier versions of Windows, 7-Zip opens it for free.

1. Stop the server

   With “Stop”, on “Home”. Wait until it says “Offline”.

2. Compress the world

   In “Files”, tick the world's folder (and world_nether and world_the_end if they exist, you'll see why further down) and press “Compress”. A new compressed file appears in the same folder.

3. Download it

   Open that file's menu and press “Download”. Once you have it on your PC, you can delete it from the server so it doesn't take up disk.

4. Or download a full backup

   On paid plans, “Backups” → “Create Backup” and, in the backup's menu, “Download”: you get the whole server (world, plugins and settings) in a single file. The world's folder is inside. The free server has no backups: use “Files”.

If it's very big: over SFTP

A world with years of play or pregenerated can be several GB, and the browser sometimes cuts off downloads that large. With a program like FileZilla you download it over SFTP and, if it gets cut off, it carries on where it left off. The details to connect are in “Advanced settings” → “SFTP”.

If the server was Paper: put the Nether and the End together

Since 26.1, Paper saves the world the same way as the normal game: the Nether and the End go inside the world's folder, in world/dimensions/minecraft (the_nether and the_end). With a 26.1 or newer server, the world folder is already complete and there's nothing to merge.

In earlier versions of Paper (and of Spigot or Purpur), the Nether and the End are stored separately, in the world_nether and world_the_end folders, and the singleplayer game doesn't look for them there. If you only copy world, you'll go into the Nether and it will be unexplored.

Modded servers (Fabric, Forge, NeoForge) already save everything inside world, just like the game: there's nothing to merge.

1. Find DIM-1 in world_nether

   Inside world_nether there's a DIM-1 folder: that's your Nether. Move it inside world (so you have world/DIM-1).

2. Find DIM1 in world_the_end

   Inside world_the_end there's a DIM1 folder: that's your End. Move it inside world too (world/DIM1).

3. The rest of those folders isn't needed

   The level.dat and everything else in world_nether and world_the_end aren't needed in singleplayer.

Open it in singleplayer

Copy the world folder (with the Nether and the End now inside) into .minecraft/saves. On Windows: press the Windows key, type %appdata%, go into .minecraft and then into saves. Rename it if you like: the folder's name is what you'll see in the world list.

Open Minecraft with the same version the server had, or a newer one. With an older one the world won't open, and opening it with a newer one updates it and it can't go back: keep the file you downloaded as a backup.

If the server had mods, your Minecraft needs the same mods and the same loader version; otherwise the mods' blocks and items disappear from the world. Paper plugins don't carry over to singleplayer: their stuff (protected land, economy, ranks) stays on the server, but what you built does come along.

What about my inventory?

On a server, each player's data (inventory, position, health) is in one file per player named after their UUID: world/playerdata/<UUID>.dat, and since 26.1, world/players/data/<UUID>.dat. In singleplayer, older versions read the player from inside level.dat, and a server world doesn't include that: that's why you sometimes appear at the respawn point, with nothing.

Mojang fixed this in 1.20.5, and in recent versions the game usually loads your player file if you join with the same account you used on the server. If you still come out with an empty inventory, your things aren't lost: they're still in that file. With an NBT editor (NBTExplorer, for example) you can copy its contents into level.dat, in a tag called Player; make a copy of both files before touching them.

If the server was cracked (online-mode=false), your UUID there isn't your account's, so the game doesn't recognise you and you join as a new player. With NapNodes' UUID tool you get both (the account one and the offline one) and you know which file is yours.

Frequently asked questions