Minecraft Realms Backup & Restore Guide
Protecting Your Minecraft Realm: A Backup Guide
Significant effort is often invested in building within Minecraft. Fortunately, safeguarding those creations is a straightforward process. This guide details how to effectively back up your Minecraft Realms worlds, ensuring their continued safety.
Why Back Up Your Minecraft Realm?
Data loss can occur for various reasons, ranging from accidental errors to unforeseen technical issues. Regularly backing up your realm mitigates the risk of losing valuable progress. A recent backup allows for quick restoration, minimizing downtime and frustration.
How to Initiate a Realm Backup
The process of creating a backup within Minecraft Realms is remarkably simple. It can be completed directly from the Minecraft game interface.
Here's a step-by-step guide:
- Open Minecraft and navigate to the “Minecraft Realms” section.
- Select the realm you wish to back up.
- Click on the “Backup” button.
- Confirm the backup creation.
Managing Your Realm Backups
Minecraft Realms stores multiple backups, providing a history of your world's evolution. This allows you to revert to earlier states if needed.
You can manage your backups as follows:
- Within the realm settings, access the “Backups” section.
- View a list of available backups, including their creation dates.
- Select a backup to restore your realm to that specific point in time.
- You can also download backups for offline storage.
Downloading Backups for Extra Security
While Minecraft Realms provides secure storage, downloading backups offers an additional layer of protection. Storing backups locally or on a separate cloud service safeguards against potential issues with the Realm service itself.
To download a backup:
- Navigate to the “Backups” section within your realm settings.
- Select the desired backup.
- Choose the “Download” option.
- The backup will be downloaded as a file to your computer.
Restoring from a Backup
Should the need arise, restoring your realm from a backup is a straightforward procedure. The restoration process overwrites the current realm with the selected backup.
To restore:
- Access the “Backups” section of your realm settings.
- Select the backup you want to use for restoration.
- Click the “Restore” button.
- Confirm the restoration process.
Remember that restoring a backup will replace the current state of your realm with the state it was in at the time of the backup. Ensure you've selected the correct backup before proceeding.
The Importance of Minecraft Realms World Backups
Related: Guidance on Integrating Custom Worlds into Your Minecraft Realms Server
The primary motivation for creating backups of your Minecraft Realms world extends beyond simply possessing a duplicate safeguard. The reasoning is, in fact, more complex.
Undoubtedly, preserving backups of anything requiring significant effort is prudent. While Minecraft Realms represents a robust service maintained by Mojang, the possibility of unforeseen issues remains. Any world in which substantial time and energy have been invested – encompassing extensive structures, settlements, or Redstone mechanisms – should be periodically backed up as a precautionary measure.
Beyond safeguarding against improbable server malfunctions, backing up your worlds also protects against the more frequent occurrence of accidental damage caused by yourself or fellow players.
Consider the appealing village depicted in the image above. We have been actively encouraging villager reproduction and are preparing to construct defensive structures around the settlement. While not yet a massive undertaking, locating a suitable village in a survival environment can be challenging. Considerable work has already been completed within the buildings, and numerous resources are stored in chests. What potential problems could arise at this juncture?
We will refrain from identifying the individual responsible, but someone attempted to enhance one of the larger village dwellings with a fireplace that demonstrably failed to adhere to Minecraft’s fire safety regulations. Consequently, upon our next login, we discovered the village engulfed in flames, with fire spreading rapidly across the rooftops.
This scenario perfectly illustrates the value of both the integrated Minecraft Realms backup system – which performs backups on the server – and the restoration functionality – allowing you to upload backups stored on your personal computer.
Backups are also beneficial when you wish to temporarily remove a world from active rotation while retaining access for future gameplay. Minecraft Realms offers only four world slots, one of which is dedicated to minigames, limiting the number of conventional worlds that can be loaded simultaneously to three. It is likely that, at some point, you will have a world you are not yet prepared to delete but do not frequently play. Downloading a backup as a precaution allows you to revisit the world later, preventing permanent loss of your creations.
Lastly, there’s a use case extending beyond simple backups: offline world development. Imagine you will be in a location with unreliable internet connectivity for an extended period and wish to continue working on your world. You can utilize the backup function to download your Minecraft Realms world to your laptop, taking it with you and subsequently uploading it with your modifications upon your return.
Now, let's explore the procedures for performing these actions – server backups, local machine backups, and world restoration.
Safeguarding Your Minecraft Realm: A Backup Guide
Minecraft Realms offers two distinct methods for securing your world data. One is an automated, server-side backup system that operates continuously. This ensures data preservation even without active user intervention. The other approach involves downloading your Minecraft Realm’s world directly to your personal computer for storage and potential offline gameplay.
Both methods begin by launching Minecraft and navigating to the "Minecraft Realms" section on the main menu. Subsequently, select the configuration wrench icon, as illustrated in the image above.
Initiating a Server Backup Manually
As previously mentioned, the server automatically creates backups at regular intervals during server activity. However, there isn't a direct, in-game command or button to trigger a backup on demand, such as a "/backup" command.
Despite this, a workaround exists to force a backup when needed. This is particularly useful before undertaking significant changes to your builds that might be difficult or impossible to undo. Access the configuration menu for your Realm and temporarily swap your current world for a minigame by selecting the "Minigame" button, shown above, and choosing a game.
This technique is undocumented, yet consistently effective. Switching to a minigame level—even without actually playing it—automatically initiates an immediate backup of your current world before the transition. Simply reselect your original world (like "World 1") to restore it, completing the backup process.
Downloading Realm Backups to Your PC
To obtain a local copy of your Realm’s world for archiving or offline play, downloading it to your computer is straightforward.
Ensure the desired world is currently active. In our example, we are downloading "World 1," which is the currently loaded world, as depicted in the screenshot. With the target world selected, choose "World backups".
Related: How to Back Up Your Minecraft Worlds, Mods, and More
Select "Download Latest" to retrieve the most recent backup of your world. A confirmation screen will appear, informing you that the current world will be downloaded and added to your single-player worlds on your PC. Confirm your choice, and the world file will be downloaded and stored alongside your other single-player saves.
You can then launch a single-player game to play the map or copy the world folder from the Minecraft directory for separate storage. This is especially recommended if you are backing up the world solely for archival purposes and do not intend to play it locally. For guidance on backing up your local Minecraft saves, refer to our dedicated guide on the subject.
Recovering Your Minecraft Realm
Similar to the dual methods available for backing up your Minecraft Realms world, there are also two distinct approaches to restoring it. Restoration can be achieved either through server-side backups – a streamlined, single-click process usable even without local saves – or by utilizing save files stored on your personal computer.
Restoring from a Server-Side Backup
While playing, should an undesirable event occur – perhaps accidentally igniting the rooftops of an entire village, for instance – you might desire an immediate return to a previous save. Access the configuration menu, identified by the wrench icon on the main Minecraft Realms screen, and choose the "World backups" option, as previously detailed.
Locate and select the red restore arrow adjacent to the desired world version. A confirmation window will appear, displaying the creation date and time of the backup and requesting your approval to proceed with the restoration.
Upon confirming the restoration, the process will complete quickly. You can then re-enter your world and continue playing.
The village is now visible from a different perspective, with all rooflines preserved thanks to the backup and restoration process.
Restoring from a Local Backup
Restoring from a local backup mirrors the steps used for uploading custom worlds to Minecraft Realms. However, instead of uploading a newly created or downloaded world, you will be uploading a world previously downloaded from your Realms server.
Select the world you intend to restore – in this case, "World 1" – and then choose "Reset world".
A warning will appear in the reset world menu, informing you that the current world will be deleted. You will then be prompted to select a world change option. Choose "Upload world".
Identify the local file that corresponds to your Realms name, world name, and the backup date. In the example provided, the world is clearly labeled "Blockland (World 1)". If the desired world isn't listed, it likely isn't located in the default Minecraft /saves/ directory.
You may need to copy the world folder back into the /saves/ directory to make it visible. Once located, select the "Upload" button to transfer your local world save to the Minecraft Realms server.
Designate the uploaded world as the active map and resume gameplay as if returning to the day the backup was created.
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