Minecraft server config reference for server.properties

Most Minecraft server settings live in server.properties, in the top folder of your server. Change the common ones in Settings with plain labels. Edit the full file under Advanced in Settings, or in Files, then restart the server.

Where the files are

How to change settings

1. Easy settings: open Settings. Things like difficulty, game mode, PvP, max players and the whitelist have plain labels. The panel writes them into the right file for you.
2. Advanced: the real files, one tap away in Settings. Edit a line, save, then restart. If you edit a file by hand, the easy settings read your change rather than overwrite it.
3. Files: the same files in the file manager, plus every other config. SFTP works too, on port 2022 with the details from the SFTP card in Files.

Changes to server.properties apply on the next start, so press Restart on Overview after saving. A sleeping server picks them up when it wakes.

Java server.properties

Defaults below are from a fresh 26.3 server.

Keys we set for you and you should leave alone: server-port, server-ip, enable-rcon, rcon.port, rcon.password, enable-query, query.port and the management-server keys. Changing them can stop players from reaching the server.

Java game rules

Since 1.21.9, PvP, monsters, the Nether and command blocks are game rules, not server.properties keys. Change them in the easy settings, or with a command in Console:

gamerule pvp false

Game rules are saved inside the world and apply at once. These names work on 1.21.11 and later, when game rules got lowercase names with underscores.

On 1.21.8 and older, use server.properties instead: pvp, spawn-monsters, allow-nether and enable-command-block. On 1.21.10 and older, game rules use the old names, like keepInventory.

Bedrock server.properties

Defaults below are from a fresh Bedrock Dedicated Server 1.26.63.

Keys we set for you and you should leave alone: server-port, server-portv6, server-ip, transport, server-udp-ports and enable-lan-visibility. They decide how players reach the server.

Bedrock game rules work the same way, with lowercase names: gamerule pvp false, gamerule keepinventory true. In game, most commands, including gamerule, need allow-cheats=true.

Settings you can change without a restart

• Difficulty: difficulty hard on both editions. It goes back to the server.properties value on the next start, so change it in Settings too.
• Game rules: gamerule on both editions.
• Bedrock cheats: changesetting allow-cheats true turns cheats on until the next restart. It doesn’t edit the file.
• Whitelist and ops: commands like whitelist add and op apply at once. If you edit whitelist.json or allowlist.json by hand, run whitelist reload (Java) or allowlist reload (Bedrock).

Admin, whitelist and ban files

You rarely need to edit these by hand. Settings > Players and the commands in the ops and whitelist guide keep them right. If you do edit one, keep it valid JSON: square brackets around the list, commas between entries and no comma after the last one. The editor in Files checks JSON before it saves.

A Java ops.json entry looks like this:

[
  {
    "uuid": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
    "name": "YourName",
    "level": 4,
    "bypassesPlayerLimit": false
  }
]

A Bedrock allowlist.json entry needs only the gamertag. The server fills in the player’s ID the first time they join:

[
  { "name": "YourGamertag", "ignoresPlayerLimit": false }
]