How to Whitelist Players on Your Minecraft Bedrock Server

Enable and manage the Bedrock allowlist to control who can join your server, using console commands or by editing allowlist.json directly.

The allowlist (formerly called whitelist) restricts your server to only approved players. When enabled, anyone not on the list gets rejected at connection.

Bedrock renamed the command from whitelist to allowlist in newer versions. Both work, but use allowlist going forward.

Enable the Allowlist

Open server.properties

In the XGamingServer Panel, click Files in the sidebar and open server.properties.

Set allow-list to true

Find this line and change it:

allow-list=true

Click Save Content.

Restart the server

Go to Console and restart. The allowlist is now active — only listed players can join.

Managing Players

Run these in Console while the server is running:

Command	What it does
`allowlist add "PlayerName"`	Add a player (quotes required — gamertags can have spaces)
`allowlist remove "PlayerName"`	Remove a player
`allowlist list`	Show all allowed players
`allowlist reload`	Reload the file after manual edits

The player does not need to be online to be added. The server will resolve their XUID automatically when they first connect.

Open the file

In Files, open allowlist.json in the root directory.

Add entries

Each player needs a JSON object with their gamertag. The XUID is optional — the server fills it in automatically on first connection.

[
  {
    "ignoresPlayerLimit": false,
    "name": "PlayerOne"
  },
  {
    "ignoresPlayerLimit": true,
    "name": "AdminPlayer",
    "xuid": "2535416790845590"
  }
]

Save and reload

Click Save Content, then run allowlist reload in Console to apply without restarting.

allowlist.json Fields

Field	Required	Description
`name`	Yes	Player's Xbox gamertag (exact match, case-insensitive)
`xuid`	No	Xbox User ID. Auto-filled on first connect if left blank
`ignoresPlayerLimit`	No	If `true`, this player can join even when the server is at max capacity. Useful for admins

How It Works With online-mode

The allowlist requires online-mode=true (the default). With online-mode=false, the server cannot verify Xbox identities, so the allowlist becomes name-based only — which can be spoofed.

Common Issues

Problem	Fix
Player can't join but is on the list	Check for typos in the gamertag. Run `allowlist list` to verify. If the XUID is wrong, remove it and let the server re-resolve
"You are not on the allowlist"	The player's gamertag may have changed. Remove the old entry and re-add with the new name
allowlist.json is empty `[]`	This is normal for a new server. Add players via console or edit the file
Changes don't take effect	Run `allowlist reload` in Console, or restart the server

How to Whitelist Players on Your Minecraft Bedrock Server

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