How to find the world seed on a Minecraft server

How to Find and Utilize a Minecraft World Seed on Your Server

Every Minecraft world is generated from a unique code called a "seed."

For a server owner, this seed is a powerful tool for recreating worlds, creating new custom worlds with plugins, and planning for long-term performance. This guide will show you how to find and practically utilize your server's seed.

Finding Your Server's World Seed

You can find your world's seed with a single, simple command. This requires you to have Operator (OP) status or access to the server console.

1. Run the command: /seed
2. The server will display a long number in the chat. This is your world seed. Copy this number and save it somewhere safe.

Utilizing a Seed on Your Server

Once you have a seed, you can use it in several powerful ways to manage your server.

Recreating Your Main World

You can set your server's primary world by pasting a seed into the level-seed= line in your server.properties file.

Important Note: The level-seed setting is only used when the server generates a completely new world. It will not change a world that already exists. Once a world is created, its seed is saved internally and this setting is ignored on subsequent restarts.

To force the server to generate a new world with your chosen seed, follow these steps:

1. Stop your server.
2. Open your server.properties file and set the level-seed= to the exact seed you want to use.
3. In your "File Manager," delete or rename your existing world folder (e.g., rename `world` to `world_backup`).
4. Start your server. It will now generate a new world using the seed you specified.

Creating New Worlds with Multiverse

If you use a multi-world plugin like Multiverse-Core, you can create new, separate worlds using any seed you want. This is perfect for adding a resource-gathering world that is known to have specific biomes or many caves.

Example command: /mv create MintServers normal -s 123456789

Planning for Exploration and Performance

You can use your seed with an online tool like Chunkbase to create a full map of your world. As a server owner, you can use this map to:

• Find specific biomes or structures and use the /locate and /tp commands to visit them instantly.
• Identify an ideal area for your players, then use the /worldborder command to set a border around it.
• Pre-generate all the chunks within that world border using a plugin like Chunky, which drastically reduces exploration lag for your players.

Conclusion

Your Minecraft world seed is a key piece of information for professional server management.

By utilizing it to set your main world, create new custom worlds, and plan for performance, you can exercise greater control over your players' experience and your server's long-term health.