Minecraft MOTD Generator & Maker

Type your message in the editor, highlight the part you want to colour and pick one of the 16 colours, a custom hex colour or a gradient preset. The generator turns that into the right § codes (for example §a for green) and shows the result in the live server-list preview. Copy it from the export tab that matches your server.

Open server.properties in the server folder, paste the generated code after motd= (for example motd=§aMy Server) and restart the server. A /reload is not enough, the MOTD is read at startup.

Switch the generator to Bedrock and paste the output as the server-name= line in the Bedrock Dedicated Server’s server.properties, then restart. The Bedrock server list shows server-name as the first line and your world name (level-name) as the second, so only one line can be styled. PocketMine-MP reads motd= instead.

No. Bedrock renders the 16 standard colour codes plus bold and italic. Hex colours and gradients do not exist on Bedrock, §m and §n are material colours there instead of strikethrough and underline, and §k obfuscation does not render reliably in the server list. Bedrock mode hides those controls and snaps any hex colour to the nearest standard one. If you run a Java server with Geyser, Bedrock players see your Java MOTD, so use Java mode.

Two lines of about 59 visible characters each. Colour and format codes do not count, and the counter under the editor turns red when a line is too long. Longer lines are cut off in the server list.

Press Enter in the editor. In server.properties the line break is written as \n. BungeeCord takes the same \n inside double quotes, Velocity uses the <newline> tag, and ServerListPlus uses a real second line inside the Description block.

The usual causes: plain text was pasted instead of the § codes, the file was saved in an encoding that mangled the § character (use the escaped \u00A7 form, which is the default here), or the server was only reloaded instead of restarted. Hex colours and gradients need Paper or Spigot 1.16 or newer; older versions drop them.

Yes. Enter the address (and the port if it is not 25565) in the import box. The tool pings the server, reads the description with its colour codes and puts it in the editor so you can change it. Java servers only; Bedrock servers answer a different kind of ping.

Vanilla, Paper, Spigot, Fabric and Forge read server.properties. Use the & codes for plugins that translate ampersand codes, the BungeeCord tab for a Bungee proxy, the Velocity tab for a Velocity proxy or MiniMessage plugins, and the ServerListPlus tab for that plugin. Bedrock mode gives you the server-name line for Bedrock Dedicated Server and PocketMine-MP.

MiniMessage is the tag format used by Velocity and by Paper plugins built on Adventure: <red>, <bold>, <gradient:#a:#b> and <newline>. Use the Velocity tab for those. Vanilla server.properties does not understand it, so use the § codes there.

Yes. The download PNG button renders the preview with the Minecraft font on a server-list background, with the same shadow, bold and italic the game draws, so you can post it on Discord or in an announcement.

The share link button copies a link that opens this exact MOTD in the editor, and the link unfurls with a preview image in Discord and on Twitter.

Any character in Minecraft’s font, which includes symbols like ★ ✦ ❤ ➤ ⚔ ▶ ● ◆ ✔ ✖ ☠ ⚡ ♫ ☾ from the symbol picker. Emoji are not in the font and show up as missing glyphs.