Set up PlayerParticles on your server

PlayerParticles lets each player pick a particle effect and a style, such as a halo or an orbit, and wear it around themselves or at a fixed spot in the world. It runs on the server only, on Paper or Purpur, so players install nothing.

Checked against PlayerParticles 8.13, which lists Paper and Folia up to Minecraft 26.2 on its Modrinth page, October 2026.

What you need

• A Paper or Purpur server. Vanilla servers have no Plugins tab, so switch software in JAR Manager first (see Change your Minecraft version or mod loader).
• A permissions plugin such as LuckPerms, because players need a permission for each effect and style they use.

Install it

The plugin's wiki asks you to stop the server before adding the jar.

1. In the Console tab, click Stop.
2. Open the Plugins tab, leave the Modrinth button selected and search for PlayerParticles.
3. Click Install on the result by Altruemi.
4. Go back to the Console tab and click Start. Type plugins to check that PlayerParticles is listed.

The Game version filter in the store starts on your server's own version and lists only builds for it. Modrinth lists PlayerParticles 8.13 for versions up to 26.2. If your server is on a newer version and the search comes back empty, set Game version to Any version, or click Show every version under the empty results. Its pages do not say whether 8.13 runs on a newer version, but we installed it from the store on a Paper 26.3 server and it started with no errors.

Give players access

Everyone can run /pp, because playerparticles.basecommand is on by default. To use a particle, though, a player needs the permission for its effect and its style:

• playerparticles.effect.<name> and playerparticles.style.<name> grant one effect or one style. playerparticles.effect.* and playerparticles.style.* grant all of them.
• playerparticles.particles.max.<number> sets how many particles a player can run at once, and playerparticles.groups.max.<number> sets how many groups they can save.
• playerparticles.fixed allows fixed effects, which sit at a spot in the world instead of on a player.
• playerparticles.reload and playerparticles.reset.others are for staff.

A player missing a permission gets a message such as "You do not have permission to use the effect" with the effect's name.

What players type

Running /pp by itself opens the menu, where players pick an effect and style and save combinations. By default the menu only opens for a player who has permission for at least one effect and one style, so grant some before a new group tries it. A few commands to know:

• /pp effects and /pp styles list what a player can use.
• /pp add, /pp edit and /pp remove manage active particles, and /pp list shows their IDs.
• /pp toggle hides or shows particles, and /pp reset removes all of a player's active particles.
• /pp group save <name> stores the active particles as a group, and /pp group load <name> brings them back.
• /ppo <player> <command> runs a /pp command as another player, and needs playerparticles.override.

Settings and files

Everything lives in plugins/PlayerParticles after the first start. Edit these files in the File Manager:

• config.yml holds most settings, plus a gui-icon section for the menu buttons. The locale setting picks the language file, and the default is en_US.
• effects and styles are folders that hold the settings for individual effects and styles. An effect only has a name and an enabled switch. You can turn one off there if you do not want it offered.
• preset_groups.yml defines the preset groups players can load from the menu. The file is not updated automatically, so delete it and run /pp reload to get the defaults back.

After a change, run /pp reload to reload config.yml and the language file.

PlayerParticles keeps its data in a playerparticles.db file. This is a SQLite database, which is used when MySQL is switched off, and the wiki warns that deleting it with SQLite enabled loses data. Leave the mysql-settings section alone: this server has no MySQL database to connect to.

Common problems

• "You do not have permission to use the effect". The player has no permission for that effect or style yet. To test, grant playerparticles.effect.* and playerparticles.style.* to one group.
• A preset group will not load. The player must also have permission for every effect and style inside the group.
• An edit to config.yml has no effect. Run /pp reload, or restart the server.