What the Minecraft server properties file controls

server.properties is the plain-text settings file a Minecraft server reads when it starts. Java Edition and Bedrock Edition each have their own version of it, and the two are not compatible. The settings that matter most for a modded or plugin server are online-mode, white-list, enforce-whitelist, view-distance, simulation-distance and server-port.

Facts here come from the Minecraft Wiki, the PaperMC docs, Microsoft Learn and Mojang's help page, all read on 24 October 2026. We did not run a server or measure any setting, so nothing below is a performance result.

What server.properties is and where it lives

On Java Edition the file sits in the working directory of the server software, so it appears in whichever folder the server was started from. It is UTF-8 text of key=value lines, and lines starting with # are comments. The server rewrites the file on every start: existing values are kept, and missing keys or invalid values fall back to defaults. Comments you add do not survive.

Bedrock Dedicated Server uses an INI-style file with different keys. Microsoft Learn documents it separately, and the table below shows where the two differ. For the wider picture of server types, see what a Minecraft server is.

Settings that control who can join

online-mode is the account check. The PaperMC docs say that with it on, every connecting player needs a valid Minecraft account. Microsoft Learn highly recommends keeping the Bedrock equivalent on for any server reachable from the internet.

white-list turns the player list on. enforce-whitelist decides whether people already online are removed when that list changes. With it off, online players who are not on the list stay connected. Our guide to whitelisting a server covers the steps.

Settings that control performance

view-distance is how much world data the server sends. simulation-distance is how far from a player entities are updated, and per Paper, entities outside that radius are neither ticked nor visible. Both are radii in chunks, not diameters. Simulation distance vs render distance explains how they differ from the setting on the player's side.

entity-broadcast-range-percentage (default 100, range 10 to 1000) controls how close entities must be before they are sent. The wiki and Paper both warn that higher values may cause more lag. max-tick-time (60000 ms) is a watchdog. Paper says a single tick that long counts as a crash and the server shuts down, and -1 disables the watchdog.

Settings that control the network

server-port is the listening port, 25565 by default on Java. server-ip is the address to bind to, and Paper says to leave it blank to bind to all interfaces. Defaults for Java, Bedrock and Geyser are compared in Minecraft server port defaults.

Which changes need a restart

The wiki states that after changes are made to the file, the server must be restarted for them to take effect. It lists no exceptions. The one reload it mentions is for the whitelist file, which enforce-whitelist acts on. The sources give no per-key list of settings that apply live, so assume a restart.

What differs on a modded or plugin server

The sources document plugin servers, not loader-based modded ones. Paper's file has the same keys with a few changes. pause-when-empty-seconds is -1 (disabled) by default, because Paper says pausing is incompatible with what plugins expect. The wiki's default for 26.3 is 60. Paper also accepts gzip for region-file-compression, and sync-chunk-writes has no effect on Paper by default. To pick between Paper and its relatives, see Paper vs Spigot vs Purpur.

For a Fabric or NeoForge host, the pack holds nothing on loader-specific changes to this file, so follow hosting a modded server. Plugins install through the plugin guide, and a server restart follows.

About the Server.Properties file

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