Starting fresh instead? See how to make a Hytale server.
Moving a Hytale World to Another Server
Moving a world you already play on, from your own machine or from one host to another, is a file copy plus one configuration change. The world is a folder. Copy the folder to the new server, tell the server to load it, and start it. Everything below is that, in order, with the parts people usually get wrong.
Before you touch anything, take a copy you can go back to. Stop the server first. Copying a world while the server is running gives you a half-written folder, and that is the most common way people lose progress during a move.
1. Stop the server and find the world folder
Shut the server down before copying. A running server holds chunks in memory and writes them on its own schedule, so a copy taken mid-session can be missing the last few minutes or, worse, contain partly written region files.
Worlds live together in the server's world directory, one folder per world, named after the world itself. Where that directory sits depends on how you are running the game: a self-hosted install keeps it under the game's own data folder, and a hosted server exposes it through the file manager or over FTP. Confirm the location in your own install rather than assuming a path, since it moves between platforms and between updates. If you are not sure which folder is the live one, start the server, look at which folder's timestamps change, then stop it again.
2. Zip the folder before you upload it
A world that has been played on is thousands of small region files. Uploading them individually is slow and each file is another chance for the transfer to drop one. Compress the whole world folder into a single archive first, upload that one file, and expand it on the far side.
Keep the folder itself inside the archive rather than zipping its contents loose, so it expands back into a folder with the same name.
3. Upload it
Use an FTP client such as FileZilla rather than a browser-based file manager for anything large. Browsers handle long uploads poorly and a dropped connection at 90 percent means starting again. Upload into the server's world directory, then use the panel's extract function on the far side.
If your host's panel has an unarchive option, extracting server-side is much faster than uploading an expanded folder.
4. Point the server at the world
A server that has never seen your world will generate a new one on first start unless you tell it otherwise. The world a server loads is set in its configuration file, which the server writes on its first run.
Check the key name in your own configuration file rather than copying one from a guide. Configuration keys change between builds, and a wrong key is silently ignored, which produces exactly the symptom people report as "it made a new world instead of loading mine". The reliable way to find it: start the server once so it writes a default configuration, open that file, and look for the entry naming the world. Set it to your world's folder name, matching capitalisation.
If the server refuses to start after the edit, the file is usually no longer valid JSON. See fixing an invalid config.json.
5. Check it actually loaded
Join and look for something you built. That sounds obvious, but the failure mode here is quiet: the server starts happily, generates a fresh world, and everything looks fine until someone notices their base is gone.
Two checks worth doing before you invite anyone back in:
- Spawn area. If you land in unfamiliar terrain, the server generated a new world rather than loading yours. Stop it, confirm the world folder is where the configuration points, and check the folder name matches exactly.
- Player inventories. If the world is right but people spawn empty-handed, the player data did not come across. It lives inside the world folder, so this normally means the archive was made from the wrong level, or only part of the folder was extracted.
If the world loads but nothing is being written back, see world not saving.
What we cannot tell you here
Exact file paths and configuration key names are the two things most likely to be out of date in any guide, including this one. Hytale is still changing quickly, and a path that was right at one update is wrong at the next. Everything above is written so it stays true regardless: stop the server, copy the whole world folder, upload it compressed, point the configuration at it, and verify by joining. Take the specific names from your own installation.
Related
- How to make a Hytale server
- Fixing an invalid config.json
- World not saving
- Server will not start
- Hytale wiki home
Moving a world onto a hosted Hytale server means the copy you upload is backed up on a schedule from then on, so the next move is a restore rather than a manual file transfer.