Set up Holographic Displays on Minecraft

Holographic Displays floats lines of text in the air as holograms that you create and edit with commands. Before you install it, know that the plugin is no longer developed and its last release stops at Minecraft 1.20.4.

Checked against Holographic Displays 3.0.4 for Minecraft 1.20.4, October 2026.

Read this first

The plugin's BukkitDev page carries an "Unmaintained" notice saying the plugin is no longer being developed. It points to Decent Holograms as the alternative. The GitHub repository is archived, and the newest file, 3.0.4, was uploaded in January 2024 for Minecraft 1.20.4. The page lists Spigot 1.8 to 1.20 as supported.

You have two options:

• Run Minecraft 1.20.4. Open JAR Manager and choose Paper and 1.20.4, the version the plugin was last built for and the one it loaded on in an October 2026 test, then click Apply change and Confirm & reinstall (Change Minecraft server version or loader). The panel gives 1.17 to 1.20.4 Java 17 on its own.
• Use Decent Holograms on a newer server. It is on Modrinth and can be installed from the Plugins tab. This guide does not cover it.

What it needs

• A server that loads plugins. You need a Plugins tab, so Paper or Purpur. The plugin's page lists Spigot 1.8 to 1.20 and does not mention Paper or Purpur. It loaded and enabled on Paper 1.20.4 in an October 2026 test, and Purpur was not tested. Plain CraftBukkit does not work, because the plugin needs the Spigot chat API.
• PlaceholderAPI, optional. The plugin's page lists support for it in its placeholders, so holograms can show values from PlaceholderAPI. See Set up PlaceholderAPI.
• A server plugin. Its plugin.yml makes it a Bukkit plugin, with me.filoghost.holographicdisplays.plugin.HolographicDisplays as the main class, so it goes in the server's plugins folder.

Install it

1. Open the Backups tab and click Create backup.
2. Download the jar from the plugin's BukkitDev file page. Take Holographic Displays v3.0.4.
3. Open File Manager, open the plugins folder and click Upload files. Choose the jar.
4. Open the Console tab and click Restart.
5. Do not use /reload later. The plugin prints a warning if you do and asks you to use its own reload command.

You can also open the Plugins tab, select the CurseForge button, search for Holographic Displays and click Install. The version filter starts on your server's Minecraft version.

Make your first hologram

Make yourself an operator with Operators in the Players tab (Whitelist players and set operators). Join the server, stand where you want the hologram and run:

/hd create welcome Welcome to the server

The command is /holograms, with /hd, /holo and /hologram as aliases. The name can use letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens, and is how you refer to the hologram later. Then edit it:

• /hd addline welcome <text> adds a line.
• /hd setline welcome 1 <text> changes line 1.
• /hd movehere welcome moves it to where you stand.
• /hd teleport welcome takes you to it.
• /hd near 20 lists holograms within 20 blocks, and /hd list lists all of them.
• /hd delete welcome removes it for good.
• /hd edit welcome lists the edit commands for that hologram.
• /hd readimage <hologram> <imageWithExtension> <width> turns an image file into hologram lines.

Where it keeps things

The plugin writes config.yml, database.yml and custom-placeholders.yml in its folder under plugins. Holograms are stored in database.yml, and custom-placeholders.yml holds text shortcuts such as {primary_color} that you can reuse across holograms. After editing a file in File Manager, run /hd reload rather than restarting the whole server.

Common problems

• The plugin does not start. Your Minecraft version is newer than the plugin supports. Open Download Log in the Console tab and look for the plugin's name.
• A player cannot use a command. Each subcommand has its own permission, named holographicdisplays.command. plus the subcommand, for example holographicdisplays.command.create. Grant the ones you want in your permissions plugin (Set up LuckPerms).
• A hologram is gone for good. /hd delete cannot be undone. Before you delete several, use Download on database.yml in File Manager to keep a copy, since it stores your holograms.