How to manage players with the Players page: whitelist, operators and bans

The Players page puts everything about who may join your Minecraft Java server in one place: who is online, the whitelist, operators, bans and everyone the server has seen. You do not need to type commands or edit whitelist.json and ops.json by hand, and it works whether the server is running or stopped.

Open the page

1. Open your server in the panel and click Players in the left menu.
2. The page has five tabs: Online, Whitelist, Operators, Bans and Seen.

The Players page is offered on Java servers that run Vanilla, Paper, Spigot, Purpur, Folia, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, Quilt, a hybrid such as Mohist or a modpack. On a proxy (Velocity, BungeeCord, Waterfall), a Bedrock server and a few custom server types there is no Players item in the left menu, and if you open the page anyway it says Not available for this server type. You need the console permission, and the lists also need permission to read files.

A note above the tabs tells you how a change is made:

• The server is running. Changes are sent to its console and apply at once.
• The server is stopped. Changes are saved in its files and apply when it starts. If your role on the server does not allow editing files, you are asked to start the server first.
• The server is starting or stopping. Wait until it has finished.

Whitelist

When the whitelist is on, only the players on it can join. Minecraft 26.3 and newer switch it on by default, so a new server may refuse your friends until you add them. The Online tab shows a warning when this is the case, with an Open whitelist button that takes you to the Whitelist tab. It does not turn the whitelist off.

1. Open the Whitelist tab.
2. Type the player's Minecraft name and click Add.
3. To take someone off, click Remove next to their name.

If the tab says the whitelist is off, anyone can join. Turn it on under Settings, then Server Properties (Java), so that only these players can. See How to set up a whitelist and ban players on your Minecraft server. To let friends add their own names without an account, see How to invite friends to your Minecraft server with an invite link.

Operators

Operators can use the commands their level allows. Level 4 can use every command, including stop.

1. Open the Operators tab.
2. Type the player's name, and click Make operator.
3. While the server is stopped, you can also pick an Operator level from 1 to 4 before you add them. While it is running the server's default level is used, because the game's own op command cannot set a level.
4. Remove takes the operator rights away.

See How to op yourself and manage permissions on your Minecraft server for what each level can do.

Bans

The Bans tab has two lists:

• Banned players: type a name and click Ban. They cannot join until you click Pardon. Each entry shows since when it has applied and, if it has one, until when.
• Banned IP addresses: type an address, like 203.0.113.9, and click Ban address. Nobody can join from it, whatever name they use. Everyone on the same home network shares one address, so a ban can block more than the person you meant.

Online and Seen

The Online tab is the Active players card from the Overview page: who is on, with a menu to kick or ban each player. If the server says more people are online than it names, a card called Someone not listed lets you type a name to kick or ban. If nobody by that name is on, the Console says no player was found.

The Seen tab lists the players who have joined, or whose name a command looked up, newest first. Use it to find a name you need to whitelist or ban.

If a change does not show

A message Sent to the server with The list has not changed yet means the command went out but the list has not changed. Open the Console tab to read what the server answered, for example that a player does not exist. If a list shows as empty and the page says its files could not be read, open the file under Files and fix it by hand.

Every change is recorded in the Activity log. See How to see what happened on your server.

Looking for a Minecraft server? See Minecraft server hosting.