The Minecraft server.properties File, Explained

Nearly every core setting for a vanilla or Paper-based Minecraft server lives in one file: server.properties. Here's what the settings that actually matter do.

Where to Find It

Root directory of your server, accessible via the File Manager. It's a plain text file, one key=value setting per line — editable directly in the browser.

The Settings Worth Actually Knowing

• motd — the message shown in the server list before someone joins. See our MOTD/branding guide for more.
• max-players — hard cap on concurrent connections. Set this based on what your plan's RAM/CPU can actually handle well, not just the number you'd like.
• online-mode — true for authenticated (premium) players only, false for cracked. See our full cracked vs online breakdown.
• difficulty — peaceful, easy, normal, or hard. Affects mob spawning and damage.
• gamemode — the default mode new players join in (survival, creative, adventure).
• level-seed — set this before first launch if you want a specific world seed; changing it after the world already exists does nothing to an existing world.
• view-distance and simulation-distance — how many chunks are rendered/simulated around each player. These are genuinely some of the biggest performance levers on the whole file — lowering them is often the single most effective TPS fix on a struggling server. See our lag/TPS guide.
• spawn-protection — radius around spawn where only operators can build/break, useful for stopping spawn griefing on a fresh server.
• enable-command-block — must be true if you're using command blocks for redstone/automation builds.
• pvp — whether player-vs-player combat is allowed at all.
• white-list — enables whitelist enforcement; see our whitelist setup guide for the full process including adding players.

Applying Changes

Edit the file, save, then restart the server — server.properties is read at startup, so most changes (with a few exceptions some plugins hot-reload) need a restart to take effect.

A Word of Caution

A malformed line (a typo in a key name, an invalid value type) can cause the server to silently ignore that one setting rather than crash outright — if a change doesn't seem to be taking effect, double-check the exact spelling and format against a fresh reference copy rather than assuming something else is broken.

Plugin-Specific Settings Live Elsewhere

server.properties covers core vanilla behavior — individual plugins have their own separate config files (usually in plugins/PluginName/config.yml), not entries in this file.