Restoring a corrupted Minecraft world (Java Edition)

If you ever connect to your Minecraft single-player world and notice all your items and buildings are gone, it means your Minecraft world data got corrupted. Luckily, there is a method that you can use to recover your Minecraft world.

Possible corruption causes

Minecraft worlds get corrupted in two scenarios:

• Your computer shuts down unexpectedly. Unexpected computer shutdowns can be caused by heat-related issues (overheating, power supply fan not working correctly or at all), hardware-related issues (failing hardware component in your computer), problems with UPS or surge protector, computer virus, issues with the operating system.
• You connect to your Minecraft world from a different Minecraft version. For example: if you create a single-player world on 1.17, you always must connect to your single-player world using that version only.

Restoring the corrupted Minecraft world

When a file has been corrupted, the file still exists. You can recover the corrupted file and restore all the data you had saved on it.

Do the following to restore the single-player world (it is not a guaranteed fix):

1. Locate the "saves" folder on your computer. It is saved in the Minecraft directory. The exact location of the folder is listed below for each operating system that we support:
   > Windows: %appdata%\.minecraft\saves
   > Linux: ~/.minecraft/saves
   > macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves
   
   You should now see your single-player worlds. Find your world. For tutorial purposes, we will name the corrupted world "CorruptedWorld". Your world is called different in your "saves" folder.
   
   
   
   
2. Make a copy of the CorruptedWorld folder and all files and folders inside it.
   
   You can name the copy however you want, for example, CorruptedWorld - Copy.
   
   
   
   
3. Launch the game and create a new world with the same map generator settings (Generate Structures, Superflat, etc.) as CorruptedWorld. If possible, use the same seed too. Call this world "BackupWorld".
   
   
4. Go back to the "saves" folder. You should now notice a new folder called BackupWorld.
   
   
   
   
5. Copy the following files from the BackupWorld folder to the CorruptedWorld - Copy folder:
   > level.dat
   > level.dat_mcr
   > level.dat_old
   > session.lock
   
   Do not copy anything else.
   
   
6. Launch the game again. You should see a world called BackupWorld, with CorruptedWorld - Copy as the name of the folder in which it is saved. This is now your restored world.
   
   
   
   
7. You can delete the BackupWorld that is saved inside of the BackupWorld folder.