Minecraft MOTD Maker

What is a Minecraft MOTD?

The MOTD (message of the day) is the text under your server's name in the Minecraft multiplayer list. It has room for two lines, and it is the first thing a player reads about your server before they join. Vanilla servers start with "A Minecraft Server".

The server sends the MOTD in its status reply every time a client refreshes the list, together with the player count, the version and the icon. The name above it is not part of that reply. It is whatever the player typed when they added your server, so you cannot set it from the server side.

How do you use this MOTD maker?

1. Write your two lines. Type in the dark editor. Enter moves to line 2. Or start from one of the templates.
2. Style it. Select some text and click a color or format. With nothing selected, the choice applies to what you type next. Hex, Gradient and Symbols open more options.
3. Align it. Under the editor, set each line to left, center or right, and watch the width meter.
4. Check the preview. It shows the entry the way the game draws it, wrapping included. Set your own icon, name and player count to see the full picture.
5. Copy the right format. Pick server.properties, a plugin format or your proxy, press Copy, and paste it where the note says.

How do you set the MOTD in server.properties?

Open server.properties in your server's main folder, find the line that starts with motd= and replace it with the line from the server.properties tab. Save the file and restart the server. The MOTD is read at startup, so a running server keeps showing the old one until it restarts. On EternalZero you can edit the file in the panel's file manager, and if you do not have a server yet you can make one for free.

The output writes the § sign as \u00A7. That is the escaped form, and it works in every version and every text editor. Since at least 1.20 the server reads the file as UTF-8 first and falls back to ISO-8859-1, so a typed § usually works too, but an editor that saves in another encoding turns it into § and your colors break. The escape avoids all of that. Symbols and emoji are escaped the same way, and the line break between the two lines is written as \n.

One more detail: the properties format drops spaces at the start of a value. A centered first line starts with spaces, so the tool writes the first one as \u0020 to keep it. For every other setting in that file, see server.properties explained.

What are the Minecraft color and format codes?

A code is the § sign (or & in most plugins) followed by one character. Java Edition has 16 colors and 6 formatting codes:

The formats are §l bold, §o italic, §n underline, §m strikethrough, §k obfuscated (characters that keep changing) and §r reset.

Order matters. In Java Edition a color code switches off every format before it, so §l§6Hi is plain gold and §6§lHi is bold gold. Put the color first, then the formats, and repeat the formats after each new color. The tool writes its codes in that order for you. Text with no color at all shows in the server list's own gray (#808080), which is a little darker than §7.

Can a MOTD have hex colors and gradients?

Yes, for players on 1.16 or newer. Hex colors arrived in 1.16, and a gradient is nothing more than a different hex color on every character. The question is whether your server software can send them:

• Vanilla, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge: server.properties only takes the 16 classic colors. The tool swaps each hex color for the nearest classic one and tells you how many characters changed.
• Paper and its forks (Purpur, Folia): Paper reads the long hex form §x§r§r§g§g§b§b in server.properties, so gradients work with no plugin. Pick Paper in the server.properties tab. Not sure which you run? See Paper vs Purpur vs Folia.
• MOTD plugins: most take & codes with &#rrggbb or &x&r&r&g&g&b&b, or MiniMessage tags like <gradient:#5ee7a0:#2fb8f0>. Their pages say which. Installing a plugin takes a minute.
• Proxies: BungeeCord reads &x hex in config.yml, and Velocity reads MiniMessage.

Players on clients older than 1.16 cannot display hex colors at all, so keep the classic 16 if you let very old versions join through a proxy or a version plugin.

How do you center a MOTD?

Minecraft has no center code. You center a line by putting spaces in front of it, and the number of spaces depends on how wide your text is in pixels. Minecraft's font is not monospaced, so counting characters gives the wrong answer.

The MOTD area is 267 game pixels wide in 1.21.9 and newer, and 271 pixels in 1.21.8 and older (the server list layout changed in 1.21.9). Each character takes its glyph width plus a 1 pixel gap, and bold adds one more pixel:

Take "Hello": 6 + 6 + 3 + 3 + 6 = 24 pixels. That leaves 267 - 24 = 243 pixels, so it needs 121 pixels on the left. A space is 4 pixels and a bold space is 5, so 29 spaces and 1 bold space make exactly 121. With plain spaces only you get 120, one pixel off. This tool does that math for every line, and you can switch the bold spaces off if a plugin strips formatting from spaces.

How long can a MOTD be?

Two lines of 267 pixels each. That is about 44 normal letters per line, fewer in bold or with wide symbols, and more if your text has lots of i, l and t. You will see an old rule of 59 characters around the web. What matters to the game is pixel width.

When a line is too wide, the game does not cut it at the edge. It wraps the line at the last space, like a word processor, and moves the rest down. On line 1 that pushes your real second line out of view, because only two lines show. The width meter and the warning catch this before your players do.

Which symbols work in a Minecraft MOTD?

Any character the game's font can draw. Java Edition ships its own pixel font for letters, accents, Greek, Cyrillic and a good set of symbols such as ★ ❤ ⚔ ☀ ✔ and ☠, plus pixel emoji like 🔥, 🗡 and 🛡 (all present since at least 1.20.1). Almost everything else falls back to GNU Unifont, which the game draws at half size. Every symbol in the picker is in one of the two, so it shows for every player without a resource pack.

Small caps letters such as ᴀʙᴄ are popular for a clean look, and the ᴀʙᴄ button converts selected text. Keep symbols to a few per line. They are wider than letters, and a row of them eats your 267 pixels fast.

How do you add a server icon?

Save a PNG that is exactly 64 x 64 pixels as server-icon.png in the server's main folder, next to server.properties, then restart. The server checks the size at startup and skips any other size with a "Couldn't load server icon" message in the log. Use the Server icon button above the preview to crop and resize any picture, see it in the list, and download it with the right name.

How do you set a MOTD on BungeeCord or Velocity?

With a proxy in front, players see the proxy's MOTD, not the one in your backend servers' server.properties. On BungeeCord, edit config.yml: under listeners, replace the motd: line and keep its indentation. BungeeCord reads & codes, &x hex colors and \n for the second line inside double quotes. On Velocity, edit the motd line in velocity.toml. Velocity takes only MiniMessage there, and <newline> starts line 2. New to proxies? Read what Velocity is.

What about Bedrock servers?

Bedrock Dedicated Server has no motd setting. Its closest match is server-name in its own server.properties, which shows on the LAN list and the pause menu. It is one line, takes § color codes but no hex colors, and Bedrock has no underline or strikethrough (§m and §n are extra colors there). This tool is built for Java Edition. If you are still choosing, compare Bedrock and Java.

How does this MOTD maker compare with other MOTD generators?

Most MOTD generators share the basics: the 16 colors, the formatting codes, a preview and a server.properties line. Where they differ is in the details that decide whether your MOTD looks right in game.

Some generators can fetch the MOTD from a live server by its address. This one does not contact servers; paste your current motd= line into Import instead, which also works for servers that are offline or behind a whitelist.

Tips for a good MOTD

• Lead with what you are. Line 1 is your name or game mode, line 2 is the reason to join: a feature, an event or a season.
• Two or three colors are enough. One accent color or one gradient reads better than a rainbow, and the gray of the list is a fine base.
• Keep dark colors off. Black, dark blue and dark gray are hard to read on the dark list background.
• Center both lines or neither. Mixed alignment looks like a mistake in the list.
• Use obfuscated text sparingly. One or two flickering characters draw the eye; a full word just looks broken.
• Update it. A MOTD that names this week's event tells players the server is alive. Change it with each update or season.
• Match the icon. A clear icon in the same colors as your MOTD makes the entry stand out. For a matching flag or emblem, the banner creator can help.

Starting from zero? How to make a Minecraft server covers the setup, and essential plugins for a new server covers the plugins most servers add first.