How to install a map on your Minecraft server

Found a great custom map on a site like Planet Minecraft or CurseForge? Installing it comes down to uploading the world folder to your server and telling Minecraft to load it. Here is the full route.

1Check Your Download

• Map downloads are almost always zip files. Inside there should be a world folder, recognizable by the level.dat file in it.
• Keep the zip as it is for now; you will extract it on the server, which is much faster than uploading thousands of small files.

2Stop Your Server

• On the Console page, press Stop and wait until the server is offline. Swapping worlds while the server runs can corrupt the map.

3Upload the Zip

• In the left menu, click Files under FILES. Stay in the root folder (the breadcrumb shows container).
• Press Upload and choose Upload files, or simply drag the zip from your computer onto the page.
• For very large maps, SFTP is faster and more reliable: see managing your files via SFTP with FileZilla. Your SFTP credentials are on the FTP Details page under CONFIGURATION.

4Unarchive It

• Open the three-dots menu at the end of the zip's row and choose Unarchive. The archive is extracted into the current folder and the panel reports "Extraction complete" when it is done.

• Open the extracted folder and check that level.dat sits directly inside it, next to folders like region. If there is another folder in between, that deeper folder is your actual world folder.
• Optional but handy: use Rename in the row menu to give the world folder a short name without spaces, for example oneblock.

5Point the Server at the New World

• Go back to the root folder and click server.properties.
• Find the level-name=world line and replace world with the exact name of your new world folder.
• Press Save or use Ctrl+S.

6Start the Server

• Return to the Console page and press Start. The server now generates its extras (Nether, End) around your new map on first boot.

Finished

Join your server and you will spawn in the new map. Your old world folder is untouched, so you can switch back anytime by changing level-name again; still, a backup before big changes never hurts. You can delete the uploaded zip in the file manager to free up disk space. New to the file manager? The complete file manager guide covers every button used here.