Wiki ArticleJava EditionVerifyMenu screens

World Options

The world options are options to manage a world's files.

A player can click on a world to select it, and thereby access the options of it. Then, some options appear at the bottom of the screen.

There are a total of 9 operations that can be performed from the world options, some of which are contained within the "Edit World" screen.

Source: Minecraft Wiki cacheUpdated: 2026-06-27 Open Original
This article is about the world options for existing worlds. For world options during world creation, see Create New World. For the internal game settings, see Game rule. For the edit screen in Bedrock Edition, see Edit world.
This feature is exclusive to Java Edition.
 
A world's edit screen

The world options are options to manage a world's files.

Description

A player can click on a world to select it, and thereby access the options of it. Then, some options appear at the bottom of the screen.

There are a total of 9 operations that can be performed from the world options, some of which are contained within the "Edit World" screen.

Location Button Description
Main Screen Play Selected World Loads the selected world. A world can also be loaded by clicking on
Delete Permanently deletes the world after confirmation.
Re-Create Make a restarted copy of the world. It has the same seed and settings, but without saving any changes made to the terrain.
Edit Open a screen with more options:
Edit World Screen Editing world name The world name is visible on the top of the screen. A new display name for the world can be inputted.

Note that the name of the world folder does not change.

Reset Icon Deletes the world's icon.png file, which allows a new icon to be taken. A new screenshot is taken to become the world's icon the next time Save and Quit to Title is clicked.[verify]
Open World Folder Opens .minecraft/saves/<SELECTED WORLD>/. This allows quickly accessing folders like datapacks along with all the data for the world.
Make Backup Makes a new .zip archive in .minecraft/backups/ with the data of the selected world stored. The file name of a backup follows this format: YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss_<World Folder Name>.zip.

Example: 2020-12-24_13-32-00_My World.zip. This is the world called "My World", it was made on December 24, 2020, at time 13:32 (1:32 PM). The world folder name is the original name of the world given at world creation, not the display name.

Open Backups Folder Opens .minecraft/backups/.
Optimize World Opens a screen to upgrade the level data of the world to the latest format. Once a world is optimized, it is no longer compatible with previous level formats. There are four options:
  • "Erase Cached Data" erases data like light levels and biome data, which must then be regenerated.
  • Create Backup and Load creates a backup to .minecraft/backups/ and then begin the optimization process.
  • I know what I'm doing! begins the optimization process without making a backup.
  • Cancel cancels the optimization process.

After clicking either of the buttons, the optimization process begins. Chunks generated in 1.19 or later are skipped, as they use the current format. The rest of the chunks are reformatted.

History

Java Edition

Java Edition
1.915w32bAdded Edit Button.
July 16, 2018 Dinnerbone mentions possible addition of optimize world screen and shows early version of it.
1.13pre10 Added optimize world screen.
release Added information about upgraded, skipped and total number of chunks.
1.20Pre-release 1 Changed background texture.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360Xbox OnePS3PS4PS VitaWii USwitch
TU0CU11.001.001.00patch 11.0.1Added the World Options menu.
TU5Added bonus chest option to the World Options menu.

Issues

Issues relating to "World Options" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Screenshots

Minecraft