How to find the seed of a Minecraft server?

Every Minecraft world is unique. This is because each world has a unique seed that is placed into a generation algorithm when the world is created, using perlin noise to guarantee randomness. Knowing the seed is powerful as players can recreate the world and look for potential loot and structures.

This means that players wanting an edge over their competition in multiplayer servers could potentially use the world seed to look for incredible places to loot.

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Commands to get the seed of a multiplayer Minecraft world

Players can use an effortless command to see the seed of the world you're currently in. Players will first need to open Minecraft’s console. You can either open a chat and type can do this in a forward slash, which will let Minecraft know that the following text is a command, or hit the forward slash key, which will open a text box with the slash already in it.

From there, players will need to type in the command. The command is “/seed” and will then output the world seed into the player’s chat, where they can copy and paste it into a document to keep track of it.

The biggest downside of this method is that players can only do it with admin privileges on the server, so most players will not have access to it on more popular servers.

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Using alternative launchers

If a player is hitting a dead end with every method mentioned thus far yet is still determined to get access to the world seed, there is an additional option. This involves using a mod to download the world file, launch the world as a single-player world with cheats enabled, and use the /seed command from there.

Step 1: The most popular launcher players might use for this method is the MultiMC launcher. Players must first navigate the MultiMC website’s download section and download the launcher.

Step 2: Players should then extract the files from the downloaded zip file.

Step 3: Open the extracted folder and launcher the MultiMC.exe file.

Step 4: Follow the installation wizard’s prompts, selecting the java version and allocating at least four gigabytes of ram.

Step 5: Now, players will need to install the world downloader mod. This can be done through MultiMC. Players must click the “New Instance” button, a white rectangle that can be found underneath a yellow circle with a star in the middle.

Step 6: Set a name for the instance and ensure that the mod and Minecraft versions match. Then click okay.

Step 7: Click the button to edit the instance, and then hit the “Add to Minecraft.jar” option before confirming the action and selecting the zip file for the world download mod.

Step 8: Double click the file with the name set in step six to launch the altered version of Minecraft.

Step 9: Join the server to download the world from, pause Minecraft, and use the “Download this world” button to start gathering world information. Travel around at least a few different chunks before stopping the download.

Step 10: Open the downloaded world in a single player and use the /seed command to get the seed. It is worth noting that this method is not guaranteed to give the correct seed. Additionally, some servers consider using alternative launchers hacking and might even ban a player caught using one, so this method does come with considerable risk.

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Asking nicely

An example of a server spawn area, where players might find contact information for server admins (Image via Minecraft)

As mentioned in the commands section, most players cannot use the /seed command to view the world's seed, as admin privileges are needed to use the command. This means most players will have no real option to see the world seed in Minecraft itself.

This means that players that want the world seed will have one major option. This will be to contact the server admins and ask for the seed, as they will be the only ones with access to the command that displays it.

Any player looking to contact the admins of a server requesting the world seed should only do so once, as repeatedly contacting them asking for this information could easily be construed as harassment and might result in blocks or server bans. Players should also make sure to be courteous and respectful in their messages.

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Why servers might hide their world seed

An example of a chunk base map and the information players can get from it (Image via :)

A lot of valuable information can be found in a world seed. Players can use websites and seed to see the entire world, including biomes and structures, making it easy to find places that might have good loot. Players could also load up the world seed in creative to search for ores and see which structures have good loot.

Knowing the world seed could effectively give players a sizeable unfair advantage that many servers will want to avoid for the balance of the server.