Find a Minecraft player's UUID

A Minecraft UUID is the long ID that stays with a player's account. Whitelists, ban lists and operator lists store it next to the name. You can read one in the Players tab, in a file on your server, or look it up from Mojang by name.

Checked against Minecraft 26.3 and Paper 26.3, October 2026.

Read it in the Players tab

1. Open the Players tab in the left rail (under Essentials).
2. Stay on the first tab. It is called Whitelist, or Players while the whitelist is off, and it lists everyone on the whitelist plus whoever is online.
3. Under each name, the line starting with UUID shows the ID. On a Java account, click it to open that player's page on NameMC.

A player who is online but on no list may show a UUID a moment after the tab opens. The panel reads it from the server's usercache.json, described below.

Read it from usercache.json

The server records every player who joins in usercache.json, in the top folder. Use this for someone who joined once but is not on a list.

1. Open the File Manager tab.
2. Click usercache.json to open it.
3. Find the player's name. The uuid value beside it is their ID.

Each entry has a name, a uuid and an expiresOn date, so entries for players who have not joined in a long while can drop out of the file. You only need to read it, so close it without saving.

Look up a name that has never joined

Open the Players tab and press Add on the whitelist tab. Type the username into the Add to whitelist dialog. After a moment the dialog shows that account's head and UUID. Press Cancel to close it without adding anyone.

You can also ask Mojang directly. In a browser, open https://api.mojang.com/users/profiles/minecraft/ followed by the username, for example jeb_. The reply is a small block of text with the name and an id. An unknown name returns a 404 error instead.

Dashes: the same ID, written two ways

Mojang's reply writes the ID as 32 characters with no dashes, such as 853c80ef3c3749fdaa49938b674adae6. The panel writes it with dashes, in groups of 8, 4, 4, 4 and 12: 853c80ef-3c37-49fd-aa49-938b674adae6. They are the same ID. The whitelist.json file expects the dashed form, so add the dashes before you paste an ID into it.

Problems

• The Players tab shows no UUID. The player is not on a list and has not joined recently. Use usercache.json.
• The lookup says no such account. Check the spelling. Bedrock players who join through Crossplay appear with a leading dot in their name, and no Mojang profile exists for them: see Let Bedrock players join your Java server.
• Mojang does not answer. Wait a minute and try again, as the lookup is rate limited.