How to Download Your Minecraft Server World

Download your Minecraft Java server world to play in singleplayer, transfer to another server, or back up locally.

You can download your server world to:

Play it in singleplayer for solo exploration
Create a local backup off-site
Transfer to another server or hosting provider
Edit with offline tools (MCEdit, Amulet, NBTExplorer)

Download via Panel Files

Stop the server

In the XGamingServer Panel, go to Console and stop your server. This ensures all chunks are flushed to disk.

Compress the world folder

Right-click the world/ folder (and world_nether/ + world_the_end/ if you want those too) and select Compress. Choose .zip or .tar.gz.

Download the archive

Once compression finishes, click the resulting archive and download it.

Extract on your computer

Unzip the archive locally. You'll have the world folder ready to use.

For very large worlds (multiple GB), SFTP is faster than the web file manager.

Get SFTP credentials

In the panel, click Network in the sidebar to find your SFTP host, port, username, and password.

Connect with an SFTP client

Use FileZilla, WinSCP, or any other SFTP client.

Navigate and download

Find the world/ folder in the server root and download it.

Tip: Even with SFTP, compressing the folder first makes downloading much faster — a single compressed archive transfers more efficiently than thousands of individual chunk files.

Play the World in Singleplayer

Find your Minecraft saves folder

OS	Path
Windows	`%AppData%\.minecraft\saves\`
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves/`
Linux	`~/.minecraft/saves/`

Press Win + R on Windows and paste the path to open it directly.

Place the world folder

Extract your downloaded archive and copy the world folder into saves/. You can rename it to whatever you want — Minecraft uses the folder name as the world name.

Launch Minecraft

Open Minecraft Java Edition, click Singleplayer, and your world should appear in the list. Make sure your client version matches the server version the world was created on.

Vanilla vs Spigot/Paper Format

If your server runs Spigot or Paper, the Nether and End are in separate folders:

Server Type	Nether	End
Vanilla	`world/DIM-1/`	`world/DIM1/`
Spigot / Paper	`world_nether/DIM-1/`	`world_the_end/DIM1/`

To play a Spigot/Paper world in singleplayer (which uses vanilla format), you may need to:

Move the contents of world_nether/DIM-1/ into world/DIM-1/
Move the contents of world_the_end/DIM1/ into world/DIM1/

Or use a conversion tool. See Convert World Formats for details.

Worlds with modded blocks/items can be downloaded the same way, but you can only play them in a singleplayer install with the same mods loaded. Without the mods, modded blocks become "missing" texture errors.

Force a Save Before Downloading

If you want to download without stopping the server (not recommended, but possible), force-save first:

save-all flush

Run this in the Console. Then download the world while the server is still running. Some chunk corruption is possible if a player edits a chunk during the download.