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How to Change Your MOTD

How to Change Your MOTD

The message of the day (MOTD) is the text players see beside your server in the multiplayer server list. This guide covers the built-in server.properties setting, ServerListPlus, and MiniMOTD. Choose the option that matches your server software and the features you need.

How to change your MOTD without a plugin​

  1. Write your MOTD using the Minecraft MOTD creator, then copy the generated server.properties value.
  2. In your server panel, open File Manager and then open server.properties. See the File Manager guide if you need help finding the file. server.properties file showing the MOTD setting
  3. Replace the existing motd value with the copied text and restart the server to apply the change.

How to change your MOTD with ServerListPlus​

ServerListPlus maintenance

ServerListPlus is no longer in active development. For current configuration details and supported options, refer to the ServerListPlus wiki.

ServerListPlus can customize the MOTD and add separate messages for different players. Download it from the ServerListPlus project page, then:

  1. Upload the plugin to your server's plugins folder and restart the server.
  2. Open the generated ServerListPlus config.yml file.
  3. Follow the ServerListPlus wiki to configure the MOTD format and any player-specific messages.
  4. Restart the server after saving the configuration.

How to change your MOTD with MiniMOTD​

MiniMOTD is a plugin for Spigot, Paper, BungeeCord, and Velocity, or a mod for Fabric and Sponge. It uses the MiniMessage system and supports RGB colors on Minecraft 1.16 and newer. Download it from the MiniMOTD project page, then:

  1. Upload the plugin to your server's plugins folder, or the mod to its mods folder, and restart the server.
  2. Open the generated MiniMOTD config.hocon file.
  3. Use the MiniMessage documentation to create your MOTD. MiniMOTD also supports multiple icons and different MOTDs per virtual host on BungeeCord and Velocity. MiniMOTD configuration and resulting server-list preview
  4. Restart the server after saving the configuration.