Importing your world

Already built something on a singleplayer save, an old host, or a friend's server? You can carry that world over to PulsarServers exactly as it stands — buildings, players, inventories, the lot. This guide walks the whole journey, from finding the files on your machine to seeing them spawn back in on the dashboard.

Before you start

Two truths to internalise before touching anything:

• Your existing PulsarServers world will get overwritten. If there's anything on the current server you want to keep, take a backup from the Backups tab first.
• World files lock when the server is running. Stop the server before you import — uploading over a live world will end in chunk corruption.

Locating your existing world

From a singleplayer save

Open Minecraft, hit Singleplayer, click your world, then press Edit → Open World Folder. That opens the folder you want, no path-typing required.

If you can't open the game, the saves live at:

Windows  %appdata%\.minecraft\saves\<WorldName>
macOS    ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves/<WorldName>
Linux    ~/.minecraft/saves/<WorldName>

For modded launchers (CurseForge, ATLauncher, Prism, MultiMC) the saves live inside the instance folder — usually instances/<InstanceName>/.minecraft/saves/<WorldName>.

From another hosting provider

Almost every panel has either a Files tab with a "Download archive" / "Compress" option, or SFTP access. Use whichever is faster:

• Files tab: select the world folder(s) → right-click → Compress / Archive → download the resulting ZIP/TAR. Best for worlds under ~500 MB.
• SFTP: connect with FileZilla or WinSCP using the credentials from the old host. Drag the world folders to your PC. Best for big worlds — resumable transfers, no browser timeout.

What you actually need to copy

A "world" is usually more than one folder. The naming depends on your server type:

• Vanilla & modded singleplayer — everything lives inside a single folder (e.g. My Cool World/). Grab the whole folder.
• Bukkit / Spigot / Paper / Purpur — dimensions are split into three sibling folders:
  • world/ — the Overworld
  • world_nether/ — the Nether
  • world_the_end/ — the End
  Grab all three or you'll lose the Nether/End side of the map.
• Forge / NeoForge / Fabric with extra dimensions — everything stays under the main world folder; mod-added dimensions sit at world/dimensions/<modid>/<dim>/ or under a legacy DIM_<id> name. You only need to copy the world folder.

Zipping it up

Uploading 50 small files one-by-one is misery. ZIP the folder first — one upload, instant unpack on the server.

Windows

1. Right-click the world folder.
2. Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder.
3. A WorldName.zip appears next to it. Rename if you want.

macOS

1. Right-click the world folder.
2. Compress "WorldName".
3. A WorldName.zip lands next to it.

Bukkit-style (3 folders)

Select world, world_nether and world_the_end together (Ctrl/Cmd+click), then compress them all into one ZIP. The panel's unarchive will lay them down side by side, exactly where they need to be.

Uploading to PulsarServers

You have two routes — pick based on size:

Files tab (small worlds, < 500 MB)

1. Stop the server from the dashboard.
2. Open Files from the sidebar.
3. Delete the existing world (and world_nether, world_the_end on Bukkit-style servers). Optional but cleaner — leaving them mixes old chunks with new.
4. Click Upload in the top-right.
5. Drag your ZIP onto the dropzone. Wait for it to hit 100%.
6. Right-click the uploaded ZIP → Unarchive.

SFTP (anything bigger, or flaky connection)

For multi-gigabyte worlds the browser upload will time out at some point. Use SFTP — it resumes and runs at full line speed.

1. Open Files → SFTP Details in the panel. Note the hostname, port and username.
2. Connect with FileZilla, WinSCP or Cyberduck using your Game Panel password.
3. Stop the server.
4. Drag the ZIP (or the unzipped folders directly) into the server root.
5. If you uploaded a ZIP, jump back to the panel and use Unarchive.

Full SFTP walkthrough: File manager & SFTP.

Placing the world correctly

After unarchiving, the world folder(s) need to sit at the server root — alongside server.properties, not nested two levels deep. Common mistake: the ZIP contained a MyWorld/ outer folder which contains world/, so the unarchive produces /MyWorld/world/. The server has no idea what to do with that.

What it should look like after unarchiving:

/
├── server.properties
├── eula.txt
├── start.sh
├── world/
│   ├── level.dat
│   ├── region/
│   └── playerdata/
├── world_nether/        (Bukkit-style only)
└── world_the_end/       (Bukkit-style only)

If your unarchive landed everything in a subfolder, just drag the inner folders up one level and delete the empty wrapper.

Naming & server.properties

Minecraft looks for the world named by the level-name setting in server.properties. By default that's world. Two options:

• Rename the folder to world — easiest. Vanilla and Bukkit servers will pick it up with zero config.
• Keep the original name, point server.properties at it — open server.properties in the file manager, find the line level-name=world, change it to level-name=MyCoolWorld, save.

First boot

Press Start and watch the console. Two messages you want to see:

[INFO] Preparing level "world"
[INFO] Preparing start region for dimension minecraft:overworld
[INFO] Time elapsed: 1842 ms
[INFO] Done (8.412s)! For help, type "help"

Connect, run /tp @s 0 80 0 and you should be standing on your old spawn. Player inventories, ender chests, advancements and stats all come along — they're stored inside the world folder.

Modded worlds, extra steps

Modded saves embed block and item IDs that only mean something to the specific mod set that generated them. Importing into the wrong pack produces "missing block" warnings and replaces mod blocks with stone. To avoid that:

1. Install the same modpack and version on the server first.
2. Match the mod loader (Forge vs NeoForge vs Fabric) — these are not interchangeable.
3. If you ran extra mods on top of the pack locally, copy those JARs into /mods on the server too.
4. Then import the world.

Bonus: copy config/ from your local instance to the server so balancing tweaks and JEI overrides travel with the world.

Bringing player data along

If a player joined your singleplayer LAN session, their data lives inside the world folder under playerdata/<UUID>.dat and is included automatically. If you're merging worlds from multiple sources, copy individual UUID files into the destination's playerdata/ folder — Minecraft will load them on first join.

Common issues

• Server starts but spawns me in a brand-new world. Either the folder isn't named what server.properties expects, or it's nested in a subfolder. Move the world folder to the server root and rename it.
• "Failed to load level <name>: Could not read level.dat". The folder is incomplete — usually because the upload finished mid-transfer. Re-upload, ideally via SFTP.
• Old Nether/End not loading on Paper. Check that world_nether and world_the_end are at the server root and the names match the level-name prefix.
• Builds load as floating bits of stone and air. Modded world on a vanilla/Paper server. Install the matching modpack or accept the loss.
• "Outdated client / server" message on join. Your singleplayer world was on a newer MC version than the server. Either upgrade the server via Changing version, or open the world locally in the matching MC version and re-export.
• Massive lag spike on first join. Normal — chunks are being re-fed to your client. It calms down after a minute. If it doesn't, see Lag & TPS drops.

Still stuck? Open a ticket with the last 200 lines of your console plus a ls of your server root and we'll dig in.