How to stop griefing on your Minecraft server

Griefing means someone breaks or steals from other players' builds on purpose. On a friends and family server it's usually an accident or a joke that went too far, but it still hurts. These tools stop it, from simplest to strongest.

1. Whitelist: only people you know

Most griefing comes from strangers. With a whitelist, only players you add can join. See How to whitelist your friends.

2. Land claims with GriefPrevention

The plugins below need a Paper server. Install them from the Plugins page (see How to install plugins) and restart.

GriefPrevention lets every player protect their own land:

• Hold a golden shovel and right-click two opposite corners to claim an area. Players get claim blocks over time as they play.
• /trust Name lets a friend build in your claim. /untrust Name takes it back.
• /abandonclaim removes the claim you're standing in.

New players get a starter chest claim automatically when they place their first chest.

3. Roll back damage with CoreProtect

CoreProtect records who placed, broke or took what. If something gets wrecked:

1. Type /co inspect and click a broken block to see who did it and when.
2. Undo it, for example /co rollback u:Name t:2h r:20 rolls back that player's changes from the last 2 hours within 20 blocks.
3. Type /co inspect again to switch inspect mode off.

CoreProtect only records from the moment it's installed, so add it before you need it.

4. Fewer permissions for new players with LuckPerms

LuckPerms lets you make ranks, like guest and member. New players start as guests who can look around but not use commands like /tpa or /sethome until you trust them. Type lp editor in the Console for an easy web editor.

5. Backups for everything else

If something goes really wrong, a backup brings the whole world back. Set up a daily backup with a schedule: see Automatic restarts and backups.

Playing on Fabric or Forge?

The plugins above don't run on modded servers. Use the whitelist, keep regular backups, and look on the Mods page for claim mods made for your loader, like Open Parties and Claims.