How to wipe your Project Zomboid server

Open Wipe in the left menu. The page is called World, and its Wipe tab offers four wipes: Map wipe, Character wipe, World wipe and Full wipe. Pick one, choose how long to warn players, and confirm. The panel saves the world, stops the server and makes a backup before it deletes anything, so you can always go back.

The four wipes

Each card on the page says what goes and what stays.

A wipe only touches the world named by Server Name under Settings, then Game Settings. Other worlds on the server are left alone.

Wipe now or after a warning

1. Open your server in the panel and click Wipe in the left menu.
2. On the Wipe tab, under What to wipe, click the card you want. Each card shows how many items it deletes.

3. Under Warn players, pick No warning, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Players get a message in the game at each mark, then the server saves and stops. With nobody online the wipe starts at once.
4. Read the summary card on the right. Backup says "Always, and the wipe waits until it has finished". Afterwards says whether the server starts again on its own: it does when it was running, and stays stopped when it was stopped.

5. Click Warn players, then wipe (or Wipe now with no warning).
6. The window repeats what goes and what stays. Click Show exactly what is deleted to see the file list. Type the word the window asks for, for example map for a map wipe, and click Wipe this server.

While it runs

A card at the top of the page follows the wipe: "Warning players: the wipe starts in" a countdown, then "Saving, stopping and backing up the server", "Wiping" and "Starting the server". You can leave the page: the wipe carries on.

• To stop it, click Cancel the wipe during the countdown. Players are told and nothing is changed. Once the backup has started, a wipe cannot be stopped.
• When it is done, the card says how many items were deleted and names the backup, for example "Before map wipe" and the date.

Before you wipe

• A free backup slot. A wipe from this page never deletes one of your backups to make room. If every slot is full, delete or download an old backup first: How to back up and restore your Project Zomboid world. A plan with no backup slots cannot wipe from this page.
• Leave ten minutes after another backup. The panel takes at most two backups in ten minutes. A wipe refused for that reason deletes nothing, but the server may already have stopped and started again, so players are disconnected.
• Tell your players. A map wipe brings everyone back on a fresh map with their character. A character wipe keeps the map but everyone starts over.

Go back after a wipe

Restore the backup the wipe made, from Backups in the left menu: How to restore your Project Zomboid world from a backup.

Good to know

• To wipe on a calendar, use the ready-made schedules: How to schedule a wipe on your Project Zomboid server.
• To reset only one part of the map, such as a burned town, use the Live map: How to reset an area of the map on your Project Zomboid server.
• To keep your current world and start another one next to it, change Server Name instead: How to delete a Project Zomboid world or start fresh.
• Wiping needs the permissions to delete files and to make backups. A helper without them sees "Wiping needs permission to delete files and to make backups."