Set up AngelChest on your Minecraft server

AngelChest puts a player's whole inventory, armour included, into a chest where they die. The player right-clicks the chest to get it all back. This guide installs the free edition by hand on a Paper or Purpur server, then covers its defaults, commands and permissions.

The latest stable AngelChest Free on SpigotMC is 13.9.4 (January 2025), and a 14.0.0 release candidate is also listed, which this guide does not cover. The options below were read in October 2026 from the project's GitHub source at its last 13.x commit, which is labelled 13.9.3 (13.9.4 was uploaded shortly after it). The 13.9.4 jar could not be downloaded to compare, and 13.9.4 predates Minecraft 26.1, so check that the jar loads on your Paper version and compare its config.yml with the values below.

Before you start

• You need a Paper or Purpur server, which show a Plugins tab.
• AngelChest Free is published on SpigotMC only. The Plugins tab searches Modrinth, CurseForge and Hangar, so this is a manual upload.
• There is also a paid AngelChest Plus. Some options in the free file say they are Plus only, including unlock-duration, xp-percentage and the option to change the command aliases. The free edition stores the vanilla amount of experience.
• Take a backup from the Backups tab before you add any plugin.

Install AngelChest

1. On your own computer, download the jar from the AngelChest Free page on SpigotMC.
2. Open your server, select File Manager and open the plugins folder.
3. Press Upload and pick the jar, or drag it onto the file list.
4. Open the Console tab and press Restart.
5. Select Plugins, press Installed and check AngelChest is listed.

The plugin writes plugins/AngelChest/config.yml on start. It is long and well commented, and the file lists the commands near the top.

What happens by default

Out of the box, a player's items go into an AngelChest on death instead of dropping. The angelchest.use permission is on for everyone. The chest is destroyed after angelchest-duration: 600 seconds (10 minutes) and drops its contents, because drop-contents-when-expired is true. A player can have up to max-allowed-angelchests: 5 chests. Past that, the oldest drops its contents when max-allowed-angelchests-behaviour is drop, or vanishes when it is delete. If the spot is blocked, the plugin looks for a free one within max-radius: 10 blocks.

To change a value, stop the server, edit config.yml in the File Manager, save and run acreload in the Console tab, or restart.

Commands and permissions

Players use these in game. In the Console tab, type a command without the leading slash.

• /aclist lists your chests with links to unlock, teleport or fetch each one. It also answers to /acinfo by default. It needs angelchest.list and angelchest.use, both on by default.
• /acopen opens a nearby chest from a distance. angelchest.open is on by default, with a default radius of 5 blocks.
• /actp [chestID] teleports you to a chest. It needs angelchest.tp, which is operators only by default.
• /acfetch [chestID] teleports a chest to you. It needs angelchest.fetch, also operators only by default.
• /acunlock [chestID] unlocks one of your protected chests. It needs angelchest.unlock, on by default, and angelchest.protect.

Admins use /acreload (angelchest.reload) and /acversion (angelchest.version), both operators only by default. Running /aclist, /actp, /acfetch or /acunlock for someone else needs angelchest.others. Grant angelchest.tp and angelchest.fetch with your permissions plugin if you want regular players to have them.

/acgui and /actoggle are AngelChest Plus features. In the free edition they reply that the feature is only available in AngelChestPlus.

Common problems

• Players lose items and no chest appears. Check angelchest.use was not taken away from the player's group. Read the first error in the Console tab after the restart.
• Chests vanish too soon. Raise angelchest-duration, or set it to 0 for an infinite duration.
• The Minepacks backpack item shows up in the chest. The Minepacks config comments suggest enabling ItemShortcut: ImproveDeathChestCompatibility for that (Set up Minepacks on your Minecraft server).