Find your server's world seed

The quickest way to read your world's seed is one command in the Console tab, and it works whether or not you are an operator in game. The Config Editor shows a seed too, but that field only records what you typed, not necessarily what the world was built from.

Checked against Minecraft 26.3 and Paper 26.3, October 2026.

Read it from the Console

1. Open the Console tab and make sure the server is Running.
2. Click the Send a command box and type seed, with no leading slash.
3. Press Enter. The reply starts with Seed: followed by the number in square brackets, such as Seed: [123456]. Copy the number and leave the brackets out.

seed is a vanilla command, so it is there on every server type. If the server is stopped, the command waits in a queue and runs once it is Running.

Read it in game

An operator can type /seed in chat. In multiplayer, Minecraft requires permission level 2 for it, so only operators can run it. The Players tab can make someone an operator with Make operator: see Minecraft whitelist: add players, set ops.

If you are not an operator and do not want to be, ask someone with access to the panel to send seed in the Console.

Why the Config Editor can be wrong

In the Config Editor, the World section has a World seed field. It is the level-seed setting from server.properties, and it only matters when a world is first generated. Two cases leave it misleading:

• It is empty. Minecraft picks a random seed when the field is blank, so an empty field does not mean the world has no seed. The seed command still gives you the number.
• You typed one later. The panel says the seed is ignored once the world exists, so a value saved after the world was made has no effect on it.

A world you brought in with World Import or uploaded yourself already exists, so World seed is ignored for it as well.

Using the seed somewhere else

People usually want the seed to look at the same map in singleplayer, to share it with friends, or to recreate the world after a reset. Whatever the reason, record it with the Minecraft version it came from.

• Same seed, different land. Mojang changes world generation between versions (1.18, for example, brought a new random number generator for the Overworld), so the same seed can give different land on a different version. Copy the version number along with the seed.
• Negative numbers. A seed can be negative. The server stores a seed as a 64-bit whole number, from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807, so copy any minus sign.
• Text seeds. If a seed was set as words, Minecraft turns them into a number. The number is what seed prints.

To start a new world from a particular seed, see Change your server's world seed.

If the command does not answer

• Unknown or incomplete command. Check the spelling and that there is no leading slash. Use your server console and send commands lists the usual causes.
• Nothing appears. Switch the level tabs back to All, and check the server is Running rather than queued.