Remove a mod from your Minecraft server

You can take a mod off your server from the Mods tab in a few clicks. The same list covers mods you installed yourself and the mods a modpack brought, because it reads the server's mods folder directly. The part that needs care is what the rest of the server does once the mod is gone.

Before you remove anything

• Take a backup. Open Backups and press Create backup. The panel's own warning about deleting the whole mods folder says a modded world that loads without its mods can lose the blocks and items they added. If the world misbehaves after the removal, restore the backup from the same tab.
• Check what depends on it. Another mod may need the one you are removing. The server reports that on the next start, and the Mods tab shows it, as covered below.
• Expect nothing until a restart. Removing or disabling a mod takes effect when the server next starts.

Remove it from the Mods tab

The tab is named Mods on Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt servers. It does not appear on Vanilla, and plugin servers show Plugins instead.

1. Open your server and choose Mods under Content in the left rail.
2. Switch from Store to Installed at the top of the tab.
3. Find the mod. The Search installed box searches names, authors and descriptions.
4. To keep the file but stop the server loading it, press Disable. The panel adds .disabled to the file's name, and Enable reverses it.
5. To remove it for good, press the red bin button. The row asks "Delete?", and pressing Delete confirms.
6. Restart the server from the Console. The panel's own notice says "Restart the server to apply."

Disabling first is the safer test. If the server starts cleanly and the world loads, delete the file later.

Check the result

After the restart, watch the Console as the server loads. Two badges can then show on the Installed list:

• Needs followed by a mod's name appears on a mod that required the one you removed. In our test on Fabric, removing Fabric API from under Chunky gave Needs fabric-api on Chunky, and the notice "Some add-ons didn't load at the last start" appeared. Install the missing mod again, or remove the mod that needs it.
• Failed to load appears on a jar when the log carries an error the panel recognises, such as a Paper plugin that could not load. It did not appear on Fabric for a corrupt jar or for a crash from a datapack error: the row stayed plain and no notice showed. If the server will not start and no row is marked, trust the Console.

Both come from logs/latest.log. Fix Minecraft mod and plugin load errors explains the messages behind them.

Removing a mod that came in a modpack

A mod from a pack is listed like any other, and deleting it works the same way. The pack's other mods may expect it, so check the badges after the restart. If you want the whole pack gone, use Remove modpack on the Modpacks tab instead. It reinstalls the server as the software and version you pick, so keep Take a backup first ticked.

Removing it by hand

If a jar is not in the list, open File Manager, go to the mods folder, and delete the file or rename it to end in .disabled. The panel removes only the jar, so the mod's settings stay in the config folder. Delete those files too if you want a clean start, and leave the world folders alone.

Your players

A mod stays on a player's computer until they delete it. The zip from Export for players, on the Installed list, is built from the server's current mods, so export a fresh one after a removal. Its instructions tell players to delete the old jars from their mods folder before copying the new ones in, because leftovers from an old pack are the usual cause of a crash on launch. Join a modded server from your launcher covers the player side.