How to Create a Full Backup of Your Minecraft Server

Do you want to prevent your Minecraft world, plugins, mods or settings from being lost? By creating regular backups, you can preserve important server files before, for example, changing the Minecraft version, installing new software or making major changes. In this guide, we explain how to create a manual or automatic backup of your Minecraft server and how to save server files to your computer using the file manager or SFTP.

Note To create backups with the built-in backup feature, either manually or on a schedule, you need at least one backup slot. If you do not have any backup slots, create a manual backup using the file manager or SFTP.

Easily creating a backup

The built-in backup feature lets you create and manage backups directly from the game panel. You can also download a backup to store it outside the Minecraft server.

1. Log in to the game panel and go to your Minecraft server.
2. Open the Backups page.
3. Click the Create Backup button.
4. Under Backup name, optionally enter a descriptive name, such as Before update. Leave this field empty if the name is not important.
5. Do you want to exclude certain files or folders? Enter them under Ignored files and folders. Otherwise, leave this field empty.
6. Only enable Locked if you want to prevent the backup from being deleted accidentally.
7. Click the Start Backup button and wait for the backup to appear in the overview.
8. Click the three dots next to the backup and select Download.
9. Check that the backup has been downloaded completely.

Tip Keep important backups on your own computer or in another external location as well. Backups in the game panel remain linked to your active service.

The same page may also show backups included at no additional cost under Automatic backups. ConsulHosting creates these automatically. They are separate from your own backup slots and cannot be deleted manually.

Setting up automatic backups

Would you like to create backups at fixed times? Create a schedule from the Tasks page. In the example below, a backup is created every day at 04:00.

1. Open the Tasks page in the game panel.
2. Click the Create Schedule button.
3. Under Name, enter a descriptive name, such as Daily backup.
4. Move the slider next to Easy Mode to Advanced so that you can set the exact time.
5. Enter the following values:

Tip Would you prefer a different time? For a daily backup at 20:30, enter 30 under Minute and 20 under Hour. Leave the other fields set to *.

6. Leave Schedule enabled turned on. Turn off Only when server is online if the backup should also be created while the Minecraft server is stopped.
7. Click the Create Schedule button.
8. Open the schedule by clicking its name.
9. Click the New Task button.
10. Under Action, select Create Backup.
11. Leave Time offset (in seconds) set to 0. Under Ignored files, only enter files or folders that should not be included in the backup.
12. Click the Create Task button.

The Minecraft server will now automatically create a backup every day at the selected time.

Note Has the maximum number of backups been reached? The next time the schedule runs, it will automatically replace the oldest backup. Therefore, download important backups to your own computer as well.

Creating a manual backup using the file manager

Do you not have any backup slots, or do you only want to preserve specific files? The file manager lets you combine the selected files and folders into a single .tar.gz archive and then download it.

1. Log in to the game panel and go to your Minecraft server.
2. Stop the Minecraft server if it is still running. This prevents server files from changing while the archive is being created.
3. Open the Files page.
4. Select the files and folders you want to back up. Use the checkbox at the top next to Name to select all server files.
5. Click the Archive button.
6. Wait for a .tar.gz file with a name beginning with archive- to appear in the file manager.
7. Click the three dots next to the archive and select Download.
8. Check that the archive has been saved completely to your computer.
9. Delete the archive afterwards by clicking the three dots and selecting Delete to free up storage space on the Minecraft server.
10. Restart the Minecraft server.

Creating a manual backup using SFTP

FileZilla Client lets you download files and complete folders directly to your computer over SFTP. This method does not create a temporary archive on the Minecraft server, making it particularly useful for large backups.

1. Install FileZilla Client and connect to your Minecraft server over SFTP. Follow our guide on connecting to a Minecraft server over SFTP with FileZilla.
2. Stop the Minecraft server from the game panel if it is still running.
3. On the left side of FileZilla, select the folder on your computer where you want to store the backup.
4. On the right side, open the root directory of the Minecraft server.
5. Select the files and folders you want to back up. Right-click the selection and choose Download.
6. Wait until the queue has been processed completely and check Failed transfers to make sure all files were downloaded correctly.
7. Restart the Minecraft server from the game panel.

Tip Create a separate folder for each backup and include the date and a short description in its name, such as 2026-07-21-before-update. This makes it easier to find the correct backup later.