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This guide is written for any host, ours or not. It moves a Java Edition world folder between servers with everything intact. If it saves someone a world, it did its job.

Scope note: this page is about Java Edition. Bedrock worlds use a different format and a different process, and this guide does not cover them.

Before you move

• Pick a quiet moment when no players are online.
• Have the new server ready and stopped before you start copying anything.
• Match versions where you can. A world usually opens forward on a newer game version, but running the new server on the version your world was built on is the safe move.

The steps

1. Stop the old server cleanly. Use its stop control or the stop command, then wait until it has finished stopping. A clean stop lets the server finish writing the world; pulling files mid-save is how worlds get hurt.
2. Find the world folder. It sits in your server's file root, and its name is whatever level-name is set to in server.properties (usually world).
3. Copy the world folder whole. A Java world folder carries the region files, level.dat, playerdata, datapacks, and the dimension folders (DIM-1 for the Nether, DIM1 for the End). Take the whole folder, never loose files from inside it. If your panel's file manager can archive a folder to a zip, archive it and download the archive; otherwise download the folder file by file.
4. Stop the new server too before you touch its files.
5. Upload the world folder. Use the new panel's file manager to upload the folder, or upload the archive and extract it there, into the server root. Check after upload that the folder landed whole: the region folder and level.dat present.
6. Point the server at the world. Set level-name in server.properties to match the folder's name, or rename the folder to what the server expects (usually world). Save.
7. Start and check. Start the new server and read the console. Then join once and check the basics: you spawn in your own world, your builds are where you left them, your items are with you, and the Nether and the End are reachable.
8. Move the rest of your setup, if any. The world folder is the terrain and the players. Plugin configs live in the plugins folders with their data folders next to them, and mods belong in the mods folder. Copy those too if you want the whole setup, not just the world.
9. Keep the old copy until you are sure. Verify the new server behaves right for a few sessions before you delete anything on the old host. Nothing here runs on a clock; take your time.