Essential Minecraft admin commands every server owner should know
You do not need to memorise hundreds of commands to run a server well. About two dozen cover nearly everything you will do as an admin. This is a practical reference grouped by job, with the small details that save you from mistakes.
Where to run them
Operators can type commands in the game, starting with /. You can also run them in the server console without the slash, and that is where you should run anything risky, because the console cannot be affected by your own connection dropping. The server console is built into your panel.
Managing players
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/op name and /deop name | Give or remove operator status |
/whitelist add name | Allow a player to join when the whitelist is on |
/whitelist on, off, reload, list | Turn the whitelist on or off, reload it, or show it |
/kick name reason | Remove a player from the server |
/ban name reason and /pardon name | Ban and unban by name |
/ban-ip address and /pardon-ip address | Ban an address |
/list | Show who is online |
Be sparing with /op. Operator level is controlled by op-permission-level in server.properties, and the default of 4 is full power. A whitelist and a short operator list prevent most problems.
Moving things and people
/tp name1 name2teleports one player to another, and/tp name x y zteleports to coordinates./gamemode survival namechanges a player's mode. Usecreative,adventureorspectatortoo./setworldspawnsets the spawn point where you stand./spawnpoint namesets an individual player's respawn point.
Items and building
/give name item amountgives items, such as/give Steve diamond 5./clear nameempties a player's inventory. Careful, because it is instant./fill x1 y1 z1 x2 y2 z2 blockfills a region with a block. It has a size limit per command, and a large fill can lag the server./setblock x y z blockplaces one block./clonecopies a region, which is handy for repairs.
Use ~ in coordinates for "relative to me". So /setblock ~ ~1 ~ stone places stone just above you.
World and time
/time set day,night,noonor a number of ticks./weather clear,rainorthunder, with an optional duration in seconds./difficulty peaceful,easy,normalorhard./seedprints the world seed, useful for map websites and tools./gamerulechanges how the world behaves, covered in Minecraft gamerules explained.
Saving and stopping
Three commands matter for safety:
/save-allforces the world to be written to disk./save-offpauses automatic saving, and/save-onresumes it. Use these when copying files by hand, then turn saving back on./stopshuts the server down cleanly. Always prefer this to killing the process, because it saves everything first.
If you take a manual copy of the world, run /save-all and /save-off first, copy the folder, then /save-on. Otherwise you can copy a half-written world. Scheduled panel backups handle this for you, as described in Creating and restoring backups.
Messaging
/say textbroadcasts a message to everyone, shown as a server announcement./tell name textor/msgsends a private message./title @a title {"text":"Restart in 5 minutes"}shows large text on screen. The text uses JSON./tellrawsends formatted chat, including links and colours, using the same JSON format.
Selectors
Many commands accept a target selector, and they are what makes commands powerful:
| Selector | Targets |
|---|---|
@a | All players |
@p | The nearest player |
@r | A random player |
@s | The one running the command |
@e | All entities, including mobs |
You can filter them. @e[type=zombie,distance=..20] means every zombie within 20 blocks. And /kill @e[type=item] removes dropped items, which can ease lag after a big farm accident. Be exact with @e, because /kill @e removes everything that is not a player.
A safety habit
Before any command that changes many things at once, run it on a copy or take a backup. A mistyped /fill or /kill cannot be undone with an undo button.
Still stuck? Open a ticket on Discord - run /ticket in any channel, pick a department, and include your Server ID or Invoice ID so we can jump straight in.