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How to Change the Spawn Protection of Your Minecraft Server

Published on July 18, 2026

Spawn protection protects the area surrounding the world spawn point of your Minecraft server. Players without OP permissions cannot place or break blocks within this area. This prevents the area where players spawn from being damaged. In this guide, we explain how to increase, reduce, or completely disable spawn protection on your Minecraft server.

Note The built-in spawn protection is only active in the Overworld and when at least one player has been granted OP permissions. Players with OP permissions can always modify the protected area.

Determine the size of the spawn protection

The value after spawn-protection= determines the radius of the protected area. You can calculate its full width and length using the formula 2 × value + 1.

Value

Protected area

0

Disabled

1

3 × 3 blocks

16

33 × 33 blocks

32

65 × 65 blocks

50

101 × 101 blocks

On a standard installation, this value is usually set to 16.

Change the spawn protection

  1. Log in to the game panel and go to your Minecraft server.
  2. Stop the Minecraft server if it is currently running.
  3. Open the Files page.
  4. Open the server.properties file by clicking its filename.
  5. Find the following line:
spawn-protection=16
Tip Use Ctrl+F on Windows and Linux or Cmd+F on macOS to find the setting more quickly.
  1. Replace the number with the desired radius. For example, use the following value for a protected area of 65 × 65 blocks:
spawn-protection=32
  1. Save the file.
  2. Start the Minecraft server using the green start button. The updated spawn protection will become active once the server has fully started.

Disable the spawn protection

Would you like players without OP permissions to be able to build and break blocks around the spawn as well? Change the setting to:

spawn-protection=0

Save the file and start the Minecraft server again. The built-in spawn protection will then be completely disabled.

Tip Are players still unable to place or break blocks near the spawn after disabling spawn protection? Check whether a plugin or mod is protecting the area. Protection provided by plugins such as WorldGuard is separate from the setting in server.properties.

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