Play your server world in singleplayer

Your server's world is a folder of files, so you can download it and open it as an ordinary singleplayer world. The steps depend on your server software, because Paper keeps some world data in a different place from Vanilla.

Checked against Minecraft 26.3 and Paper 26.3, October 2026.

Before you start

1. Match the version. Open JAR Manager (under More in the panel menu) and note the Minecraft version. Play the copy in the same version or a newer one. If a world was last saved in a newer version than your game, the singleplayer list shows its version name in red and Minecraft warns that downgrading a world is not supported.
2. Check for mods. If the server ran Fabric, Forge or NeoForge mods that added new blocks or items, install the same loader and mods in your own game before you open the world. Forge's documentation says that when a world loads with entries from a mod that is missing, the game notifies you about the missing entry and asks whether you still want to load the world.
3. Find the folder name. The world folder is called world unless you changed World folder in the Config Editor.
4. Click Stop on the Console tab and wait for Offline, so nothing changes while you copy the world.

Download the world

1. Open File Manager. The world folder sits in the top folder, next to server.properties.
2. Click Download on the world folder. The right-click menu has it too.
3. The panel packs the folder into a .zip first, so a large world takes a few minutes while the button shows it is working. The file arrives named after the folder. If a node cannot make a zip, the file ends in .tar.gz instead, and you extract it the same way.

Rearrange files if you run Paper, Purpur or Folia

Vanilla, Fabric and Forge servers keep the layout Minecraft expects, so skip this section. Paper's own migration guide says Fabric and Forge use the Vanilla world structure.

26.1 and newer. Minecraft now keeps the Overworld, Nether and End under dimensions/minecraft/ inside the world folder. Paper does too, but it leaves Overworld data files in the wrong place for singleplayer. Paper's migration guide names five of them, and Mojang's 26.1 snapshot 6 patch notes put a sixth, world_clocks.dat, in the same data/minecraft/ folder. In your downloaded copy, move whichever of these files you find in dimensions/minecraft/overworld/data/minecraft/ into data/minecraft/:

• game_rules.dat
• scheduled_events.dat
• wandering_trader.dat
• weather.dat
• world_gen_settings.dat
• world_clocks.dat

A fresh Paper 26.3 server that we started and saved held game_rules.dat, scheduled_events.dat, weather.dat, world_gen_settings.dat and world_clocks.dat there, but no wandering_trader.dat. The same folder also held chunk_tickets.dat, raids.dat and world_border.dat, which Paper's guide does not name. The Minecraft Wiki's level format page lists those three in the Overworld's own data/minecraft/ folder, so leave them where they are.

Purpur and Folia are built on Paper. If your downloaded world has the same dimensions folder, do the same move. If it has world_nether and world_the_end folders next to world instead, do the copy described below.

Before 26.1. Paper kept the Nether and End in separate folders. Download world_nether and world_the_end as well. Copy world_nether/DIM-1 and world_the_end/DIM1 into your world folder, then delete the two extra folders.

Put the world in your saves folder

Unzip the download so the folder that holds level.dat sits directly inside your game's saves folder. The default location depends on your system:

A launcher can place this folder somewhere else. Start Minecraft on the version you checked earlier, open Singleplayer and the world appears in the list.

If something looks wrong

• The world is not listed. Open the folder you unzipped. If it contains another folder with the same name, move the inner one into saves. Minecraft needs level.dat directly inside the world folder.
• The Nether or End look reset (Paper before 26.1). The files are not lost. Minecraft just could not find them, so repeat the DIM-1 and DIM1 copy above.
• Missing blocks. Install the loader and mods the server used, as in the mods check at the top.

To go the other way and put a singleplayer world on your server, see Upload your singleplayer Minecraft world.