How to fix a corrupted Minecraft world

Minecraft isn't a perfect game, and sometimes pretty awful bugs, glitches, and problems arise. When players load into worlds, they may receive errors mentioning that the world's data has been corrupted in some form or fashion. If this occurs, the world either becomes inaccessible or has some serious visual and gameplay issues due to problems in its file.

This problem can occur on both Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft, and players get worried because they have the potential to lose out on all the hard work they've put in.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to fix corrupted Minecraft worlds on both editions, and it doesn't hurt to examine the most useful ways of doing so.

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How to fix corrupted worlds in both major editions of Minecraft

Java Edition

When a Minecraft Java world gets corrupted, players tend to get locked out of it, which is incredibly unfortunate. The good news is that with the shifting of one specific folder, you should be able to easily recreate your world while removing any corruption that may have been present.

Restoring a corrupted world in Java:

1. Begin by opening your root .minecraft folder directory. It is easily found in Windows by searching %appdata% in the search bar and opening that folder. For MacOS, the default installation location is ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft.
2. From this root folder, open the saves folder. Then select the save folder of the world you'd like to recover.
3. Look for a folder titled "region" and either copy or cut it and paste it into a location you'll remember. Additionally, you can move the folder directly.
4. Open Java Edition and create a new world. It can be named whatever you'd like, but you'll want to ensure it's the same world type as the corrupted world (default, superflat, etc.).
5. Exit the game and open up your root directory again. Navigate to the new world you created and delete its region folder.
6. Take the region folder from your corrupted world and place it in the new world's folder.

When you open the game back up, you should notice that the new world you created has changed into a replica of the world that was corrupted.

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Bedrock Edition

In most situations when world corruptions occur in Bedrock Edition, there won't be any need for file or folder changes. Bedrock can copy existing worlds, which tends to work very well when it comes to any world corruption. It won't solve every instance, but it tends to work fine more often than not.

Restoring a corrupted world in Bedrock:

1. Open Minecraft: Bedrock Edition and head to your list of worlds.
2. Select the pencil button to the right of your corrupted world to open its edit menu.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the game settings menu and press the "copy world" button.
4. Return to the world list, and you'll notice a copy of your corrupted world. You can rename it in the world editing menu or simply dive right into it.

As previously mentioned, this method won't solve all world corruption incidences. However, it does completely re-generate the world as it was last saved, so in most cases, this should remove any potential corruption issues unless they are markedly more complex.