Backups & Files
A backup only helps if it exists, is recent, and restores. This guide sets up a schedule that does all three. If you've never made a backup by hand, read Back up and restore your server first.
Decide how often
| Server | Backup every | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Busy survival, SMP, skyblock | 6 hours | A grief or crash loses at most a few hours of everyone's progress. |
| Small private server | 12–24 hours | Little changes between backups. |
| Creative / build server | 2–6 hours | Builds change fast and are hard to redo. |
| Lobby / minigame (world doesn't change) | Weekly | Only configs and plugins change. |
| Proxy (Velocity) | Weekly, and before every change | Small, but losing configs and the forwarding secret takes a network down. |
Work out how many you can keep
Your plan includes a number of backup slots (the badge on Backups, e.g. 1 / 4). When the slots are full, a scheduled backup deletes the oldest unlocked one to make room.
How far back you can go = (unlocked slots) × (time between backups). With 4 slots and a backup every 6 hours, the oldest backup is 24 hours old. If you need to go back further (a griefer who wasn't noticed for days), back up less often, lock a daily one, or keep downloaded copies.
Create the schedule
- Open your server → Schedules → Create Schedule.
- Name:
Backup every 6 hours. - Only when Server is Online? Off for backups, so configs still get backed up while the server is stopped.
- Enable Schedule? On.
- Time: Minute
0, Hour*/6, Day of Month*, Month*, Day of Week*. Times are UTC, see cron times. - Create, then Edit → Tasks → +:
- Send Command →
save-all(Minecraft) to write the world to disk first. Other games: see the table below. - Create Backup, Time Offset
10seconds. In Ignored Files, list folders you don't need, one per line, e.g.logs,cache,crash-reports.
- Send Command →
- Choose Run now once and check Backups: a new backup should appear and turn Successful.
The Schedules guide has screenshots of each of these screens.
"Save first" command per game
| Game | Command before the backup |
|---|---|
| Minecraft | save-all (use save-all flush on very large worlds) |
| Palworld | save |
| Terraria (tShock) | /save |
| Valheim | none needed: the game autosaves on its own interval; schedule backups just after it |
| Hytale | none needed if the server's own world backups are on (see the Hytale guide) |
| Veloren | none needed (the database writes continuously) |
Pair it with a daily restart
Running the backup a few minutes before the daily restart means the backup has the full day, and the restart starts clean. Example: backup at 0 8 * * * (4:00 am EDT), restart at 10 8 * * *.
Lock milestones and keep your own copy
- Before a Minecraft version update, a big plugin change, or a season reset, make a manual backup and Lock it. Locked backups are never deleted by schedules.
- Once a week or month, Download a recent backup and keep it on your own computer or cloud storage. Backups live on our servers; deleting your server deletes them too.
Test a restore (once)
A backup you've never restored is a guess.
- Make a fresh backup and download it.
- Open the
.tar.gzwith 7-Zip or your Mac's Archive Utility and check your world folder,plugins/modsand configs are inside. - When you have a quiet moment (or a spare test server), restore it with Delete all files before restoring ticked, start the server and join. See restoring.
Checklist
- [ ] A schedule with a Create Backup task (check Backups the next day).
- [ ] A
save-all(or game equivalent) task before it. - [ ] At least one unlocked slot.
- [ ] A locked backup before every update.
- [ ] A downloaded copy now and then.
- [ ] One test restore.
