This guide is for anyone who runs a server on Apex Hosting and wants to move it to PlayNHost with the world, settings and mods intact. It shows how to get your files out of the Apex panel and how to put them into PlayNHost. The steps for Apex follow its own guides, so if its panel looks a little different when you read this, trust what you see on screen.

The general steps are in How to move your existing server to PlayNHost. This page covers the part that is specific to Apex Hosting.

Keep your Apex server running until the new one works. Downloading only copies files and changes nothing on your Apex server.

Before you start

Order a PlayNHost server for the same game. For Minecraft, pick the same edition (Java or Bedrock) when you order. After you order, the setup screen asks for the server software and version, so choose the same ones as your old server. You can change them later with Edit Server Type (see How to change your server type or game version), but that reinstalls the server and deletes its files by default. For Minecraft that means the same server software (for example Vanilla, Paper, Forge or Fabric) and the same game version as on Apex.
Write down your server software, version and the mods or plugins you use.
Know which Minecraft edition you play. Java and Bedrock keep their worlds in different places, and a world from one will not load in the other.

Get your files out of Apex Hosting

Stop your server first, using the red Stop button near the top of the Apex panel. Apex's guide explains that a world copied while the server runs can be incomplete or damaged.

Find your world's name

Scroll to the bottom of your Apex control panel and find the World section. The text box above the buttons Change World, Reset Nether and Reset End shows your world's file name. Write it down.

Option 1: small worlds, in your browser

Apex says this works for worlds under about 100 MB. Larger transfers can time out in the browser.

In your Apex panel, click FTP File Access at the top left and sign in with your panel password.
Find your world folder or folders. Hold Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) and click to select more than one.
Right-click and choose Compress, type a name for the ZIP file and click Create Archive.
Right-click the new ZIP file, choose Download and save it on your computer.

Option 2: any size, with an FTP client

On the Apex panel, open FTP File Access and stay on the sign-in page. It shows the Address/Host, the Port (21), your Username (it differs from your panel username) and your Password, which is the one you use for the panel.
Enter those in an FTP client such as FileZilla and connect. Accept any message that asks you to confirm.
If you see several folders after signing in, these are server profiles. Open the one that holds the files of the game you want.
Drag the folders you need to your computer and wait until the transfer reaches 100 percent.

Which folders hold the world

Minecraft Java: the world folder sits in the main folder of the server and has the name from the World section.
Minecraft Bedrock: worlds sit inside the worlds folder.
PocketMine: worlds sit inside pocketmine/worlds. The steps below cover Java and Bedrock only, so mention a PocketMine world in a ticket before you upload it.
Paper, Spigot and Purpur: the world is split in three folders. The main one, plus two with the endings _nether and _the_end. Download all three. If you only take the main folder, a new Nether and End are generated.

A backup from the panel

The Apex backup tool saves your main world in a ZIP named after the world. Open Backup in the left menu of the server page and click Start. When it finishes, the ZIP sits in your server files and you can download it with the FTP details. Apex keeps only one such backup at a time, and a new one replaces the old one. It covers the world, so you still need to copy the settings and mods yourself.

What to take

The world folder or folders.
server.properties and the other settings files in the main folder.
The mods folder (modded server) or plugins folder (plugin server), plus the settings files they created.

If your Apex server has already ended

Apex's guide says that after a server is terminated its files are deleted from the active system, and that it keeps offsite backups of servers for about a month. If your server ended recently, contact Apex technical support and ask whether a backup exists and for a download link. They say this cannot be guaranteed.

Bring it into PlayNHost

In the panel, open your new server, click Stop and wait for Offline.
Clear the default world first. Your new server may already have a default world (on Minecraft Java a world folder, on Bedrock a world inside worlds, and other games keep theirs elsewhere, so see the game's guide). Back it up if you want to keep it, then delete it. Everything in it is lost: its builds, its player data and its Nether and End. The Backups page holds 3 slots by default, so delete an old backup first if the list is full. See How to create, download and restore backups. If you upload over the default world without deleting it, files with the same name are overwritten and the others stay, so the two worlds are mixed and the result may not load.
Upload your files. To use the browser, put your world in a ZIP on your computer, click Upload in the Files tab, then tick the ZIP and click Unzip. Folders cannot be dragged into Upload. For a folder, a large world or a whole server folder, use SFTP. See How to connect to your server files with SFTP.
Put the files in the right place.
- Minecraft Java: the world folder goes in the main folder, next to server.properties. Put the _nether and _the_end folders there too if you have them. Mods go in mods, plugins in plugins. After unzipping, check that the world folder is not inside an extra folder of the same name.
- Minecraft Bedrock: the world folder goes inside the worlds folder.
- Folders ending in _nether and _the_end only work if your PlayNHost server is also Paper, Spigot or Purpur. On other types, copy the DIM-1 folder from the _nether folder and the DIM1 folder from the _the_end folder into your main world folder first.
Tell the server which world to load.
- Minecraft Java: open Settings, then Server Properties (Java) in the list on the left, and set World name to the folder name of your world. For the Paper family use the main folder name only, not the ones ending in _nether or _the_end. You can also open server.properties in Files and set level-name.
- Minecraft Bedrock: open Settings, then Game Settings, and type the folder name from worlds into Choose World. Do not edit level-name in the file, because it is reset on every start.
Match your other options in Settings to the old server. See How to change your server settings.
Click Start, watch the Console for errors, then join to check the world and the mods.

For mods and modpacks, see How to add mods, plugins and modpacks to your server. To change server type or version, see How to change your server type or game version. That reinstalls the server and deletes its files by default, so back up first.

Or ask us to move it

Open a ticket in the category Worlds & backups (or Something else). The message is limited to 300 characters, so keep it short: your game, your new server's name, the host you are leaving (Apex Hosting) and the download link to the ZIP or backup from the steps above. Put the details, such as the mod list and versions, in a text file inside the ZIP. Tell us in the ticket what you are moving and we will reply with the next step.

To make the link, upload your ZIP to a file-sharing or cloud-drive service, set the share to anyone with the link with no password, and paste the link in the ticket. Delete the link once we confirm we have the files. Never put a password in a ticket. See How to open a support ticket.

Other games

Apex Hosting publishes guides for downloading the saves of other games. Each game keeps its world in a different folder, so check this knowledge base before you upload, for example Terraria, Valheim, Satisfactory or Palworld. If your game is not listed, ask Apex support which folder holds the save, and tell us in your ticket.

After the move

Test with a few players before you cancel anything on Apex.
Take a backup of the new server once it works.
Tell your players the new address. The address changes when you change host. See How to join your server.

How to move your game server from Apex Hosting to PlayNHost

Before you start