Whitelist players on ARK: Survival Evolved

A whitelist keeps your ARK: Survival Evolved server to the players you name. ARK calls it the exclusive join list: with it on, anyone whose Steam ID is not in the file cannot join, even with the right address. It is separate from the admin whitelist in How to set the admin password and enable cheats in ARK: Survival Evolved, which only decides who can use cheats.

Checked against ARK: Survival Evolved 361.8, October 2026.

The three files people mix up

Get the Steam IDs

Each player needs their ID: 17 digits for a Steam player, 19 for an Epic Games Store player. If they are online, open the Console tab and run listplayers, or have them type whoami in the game's console.

Turn the whitelist on

1. Open the Startup tab.
2. In Additional Arguments, add -exclusivejoin. If something is already there, add a space first and keep what was there.
3. Press Save. Do not restart yet.

ARK's wiki describes -exclusivejoin as a whitelist-only mode: players can join only if they are on the allow list.

Create the list

1. On your computer, make a plain text file named PlayersExclusiveJoinList.txt, with one Steam ID per line.
2. Open the File Manager and go to ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux.
3. Press Upload and choose the file. If the file is already there, open it instead, add the new IDs one per line and press Save. How to manage your server files covers uploading and editing.
4. Restart the server. The wiki says any addition or removal needs a restart.

The wiki adds that the regular join password can be dropped once the whitelist is in use. You can leave Join Password as it is if you prefer both.

Add a player later

Add their ID on a new line, save, and restart. The wiki lists an in-game command, Cheat AllowPlayerToJoinNoCheck <ID>, that avoids a restart, but it feeds the bypass list in the table above rather than the whitelist.

Turn it off

Remove -exclusivejoin from Additional Arguments, press Save and restart. You can keep the list file for later.

Common problems

1. Everyone is refused, including friends on the list: check each line holds the player's ID and nothing else, one per line, and the server was restarted after editing.
2. The list seems ignored: the file name must match exactly, including capitals, because the server runs on Linux. It must sit in ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux, not a different folder.
3. Nobody is refused: -exclusivejoin is missing or misspelt in Additional Arguments, or the change was saved but the server was not restarted.
4. A new player cannot join: their ID is not in the file yet. Check the line holds their ID and not a name.