Set up a Folia Minecraft server

Folia is a fork of Paper that splits the world into regions and ticks them in parallel on several threads. It is built for very large servers where players spread out, such as a big SMP or skyblock. For most servers it is the wrong choice, because it is not a drop-in replacement for Paper and many Paper plugins will not run on it.

Checked against the Folia builds on PaperMC's Fill API in October 2026: 26.1.2, 1.21.11 and 1.21.8 have stable builds, 26.2 has beta builds and 26.3 has alpha builds.

Decide if you need it

PaperMC says Folia will not help the majority of servers and will break most public plugins. It suits high player counts and game modes that naturally spread players out. The Folia README says it runs best on at least 16 cores (not threads), so a small server gains little from it.

Plugins are the other limit. Folia only loads plugins that their authors have marked as supporting it, with folia-supported: true in the plugin's plugin.yml. Check each plugin you rely on has a Folia version before you switch.

Switch to Folia

1. Create a backup on the Backups tab.
2. Open JAR Manager (under More in the panel menu).
3. Set Server software to Folia.
4. Pick a Minecraft version. Choose one that has stable builds unless you want to test.
5. Optional: open Build. Newest build is the default, and any build that is not stable shows its channel beside the date.
6. Click Apply change.
7. In Reinstall server?, leave Take a backup first ticked. If some of your plugins have no Folia build, the box offers to disable the ones that will not run. They are kept, not deleted. Press and hold Hold to Confirm & reinstall for about three seconds. If you left those plugins enabled, the button is labelled Switch anyway instead and you hold it the same way.
8. Watch the Console tab until the install finishes, then start the server.

Your world is kept, but configuration files may be reset, which is why the backup matters. Change your Minecraft version or mod loader covers the same screen for other software.

Add plugins on Folia

Open the Plugins tab. On Folia its search is limited to plugins built for Folia, so a plugin that only supports Paper will not appear. Click Install on a result, then restart the server from the Console tab. PaperMC's Hangar site also lists plugins that support Folia.

Tune the threads

The Folia README says the number of region tick threads is set in the global config under threaded-regions.threads. It also advises pre-generating the world first, which cuts the chunk generation work. The global config file is config/paper-global.yml: Paper's documentation names that file for its global configuration, and Folia's own source adds threaded-regions to that same configuration. Pre-generate a Minecraft world with Chunky has the steps.

Switch back to Paper

Open JAR Manager, set Server software to Paper, pick the version and click Apply change. Your world stays.

If something goes wrong

• A plugin vanished after the switch. It had no Folia build, so the switch disabled it. Open Plugins, go to Installed and look for the Disabled badge. It is still in the folder.
• A plugin installs but does nothing. It is not marked as Folia-supported, so Folia does not load it. Use a Folia version or an alternative.
• Some features behave oddly. The Folia README, for its 26.1.x branch, lists most portal and respawning APIs, some player login APIs and all scoreboard APIs as broken. Plugins that depend on them may fail.