Here you’ll learn how to connect to your Minecraft Bedrock server and change the most important settings.

Connecting

Start the server on the server page with Start.
Wait until the status shows “running”. You can follow the progress in the Console.
In the game, open “Play” → “Servers” → “Add Server”.
Enter the IP and port from the server page into the two fields, save and join.

Playing on Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch? There’s no field for your own server address there. How it still works is explained step by step in Minecraft Bedrock on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch.

Important settings

You change these values in the Startup variables tab. Changes take effect on the next restart.

Server name (SERVERNAME) – the name of your server.
Game mode (GAMEMODE) – survival, creative or adventure.
Difficulty (DIFFICULTY) – peaceful, easy, normal or hard.
Allow cheats (CHEATS) – true allows commands such as cheats.
Bedrock version (BEDROCK_VERSION) – the server version, the default is latest.

More settings can be found in the file server.properties in the Files tab.

Important: server name, game mode, difficulty and cheats are written into server.properties from the startup variables on every start. Always change these four values in the Settings or Startup variables tab – if you edit them directly in the file, they are overwritten on the next restart.

The most important entries in server.properties

Besides the startup variables, the server.properties file in the Files tab controls your Bedrock server. Stop the server before editing:

level-name= – name of the world; also the folder name under worlds/
level-seed= – seed for a new world
max-players= – maximum number of players
default-player-permission-level= – permissions of new players: visitor, member or operator
allow-cheats= – allows commands such as /gamemode in the game
view-distance= – view distance in chunks; smaller values reduce server load

Granting permissions

In the Console tab: op playername makes a player an operator. Permissions are stored permanently in the permissions.json file.

Updates: server and game must match

Bedrock players get updates automatically through their store. If the server is older, joining shows "Outdated server". With the Bedrock version startup variable set to latest, a restart is enough and the server fetches the new version.

Backing up the world

The world is in the worlds/<worldname>/ folder. Before bigger changes, create a Backup in the tab of the same name.

Good to know

Your Bedrock server holds up to 20 players at the same time.
In the panel under Network you'll see 19 more ports besides the main port. They are needed for the player slots – please don't delete them, otherwise fewer players can join.
The server and the game must have the same version. Keep your game up to date if the server is set to latest.
The Installer is only available for Minecraft Java – not for Bedrock.

Minecraft Bedrock: Connecting to and setting up your server