Simple Backups

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This mod is designed to create and manage backups for your Minecraft server. You can specify the number of backups to keep and set a maximum storage limit. Older backups are automatically deleted to free up space.

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Automatic Backup Creation

The mod automatically creates backups during server operation under the following conditions:

1. Backup Trigger: A backup is created if:
   • There is at least one player online.
   • No players are online, but someone has just logged out.
2. Player Logouts: If the last player logs out, a backup will be made when the server next checks.
3. When no players are online: Up to noPlayerBackupCount backups (default: 1) are created using noPlayerBackupTimer as the interval (0 = use timer). Once that limit is reached, no further backups are created until a player joins (unless noPlayerBackups is true; see Configuration).
4. Player joins reset the count: Any join resets the no-player counter. If the regular timer has already elapsed, a backup is triggered immediately upon joining.

This ensures that your world is backed up regularly and reliably, even during player logouts. The backup timer is based on real-time, so a lagging server will not extend the interval.

info

You can use the JVM argument -Dsimplebackups.disableBackups=true to disable automatic backups completely.

warning

The file biomancy.spatial.db from the Biomancy mod is not backed up. For more information, see this GitHub issue.

caution

A backup will be aborted if there is less than 128 MB of free space left on the disk.

Commands

Manual Backup

The /simplebackups backup start <quiet (true/false)> command starts a backup manually. Optionally, you can use the quiet parameter to suppress in-game chat messages.

Pause Backups

The /simplebackups backup pause and /simplebackups backup unpause commands allow you to temporarily pause and resume automatic backups.

There's a small Paused indicator on the screen while backups are paused.

• /simplebackups backup pause: Stops automatic backups temporarily until resumed.

caution

Automatic backups will remain disabled until you explicitly re-enable them.

• /simplebackups backup unpause: Resumes paused automatic backups.

This command restores automatic backups to their normal schedule.

These commands are useful for temporarily suspending backups during server maintenance, events, or other situations where backups need to be halted.

Merge Incremental Backups

The /simplebackups mergeBackups command merges all incremental backups located in the output directory, which is defined by the outputPath configuration setting. By default, this is the simplebackups directory, but it can be changed according to user preference.

Compatibility

Mc2Discord

If enabled in the configuration simplebackups-common.toml, all backup notifications will also be sent to Discord.

Cherished Worlds

If enabled in the configuration simplebackups-common.toml, backups will only be created for all worlds that are marked as favorite.

Configuration

Common Config

Configuration	Description	Default	Note/Examples
enabled	Enables or disables backups. If set to false, no backups will be created.	true	Backups are paused if disabled.
backupType	Specifies the type of backups.	FULL_BACKUPS	FULL_BACKUPS: Always creates full backups. MODIFIED_SINCE_LAST: Saves only files changed since the last (partial) backup. MODIFIED_SINCE_FULL: Saves files changed after the last full backup.
saveAll	Enables or disables a save-all call before backing up.	true	E.g. player inventories may be not synced correctly if disabled.
fullBackupTimer	Interval (in minutes) between mandatory full backups, even if incremental backups (onlyModified) are enabled.	525960	Example: If set to 1440, a full backup will be created daily.
backupsToKeep	Maximum number of backup files to retain.	10	❌
timer	Interval between two backups (in minutes).	120	5 for every 5 minutes, 60 for every hour, 1440 for daily backups.
compressionLevel	Determines how much the backup is compressed. 0 = no compression (low CPU, large file size), 9 = maximum compression (high CPU, small file size).	-1	-1 is a good balance between speed and compression.
sendMessages	Whether to send messages when a backup is performed.	true	❌
maxDiskSize	Maximum disk space available for backups. Old files are deleted when exceeded.	25 GB	Accepts formats like 10 MB, 50 GB.
outputPath	Directory path where backups are stored.	simplebackups	❌
noPlayerBackups	Allows backups even if no players are online.	false	Set to true to disable waiting for online players.
noPlayerBackupCount	Number of backups to create after the last player left before pausing until someone joins again.	1	Set 0 to skip the last-logout backup; set higher (e.g., 3) for extra snapshots while the server is empty.
noPlayerBackupTimer	Backup interval (in minutes) to use when no players are online.	0	0 = use timer. E.g. timer = 120, noPlayerBackupTimer = 180 → backups every 180 min while empty.
createSubDirs	Whether to create separate subdirectories for each world.	false	Example: For a world named New World, backups will be saved in <outputPath>/New World/backup.zip.
useTickCounter	Uses internal server ticks instead of real-world time to schedule backups. Note: Laggy servers will cause increased time between backups (e.g., 10 FPS doubles the time between backups).	false	Backup schedules depend on server performance.
mc2discord	Whether to send backup notifications to Discord using the Mc2Discord mod.	true	❌
onlyFavorites	Whether to only backup worlds that were marked as favorite.	false	❌

Ignoring Files & Folders

When you know certain files (e.g. logs) or entire folders (e.g. a large cache) never need to be in a backup, you can exclude them completely. Three settings live under the to_ignore category:

Configuration	Description	Default	Note / Examples
ignoredPaths	Directories (relative to the world folder) that should be skipped entirely, including everything inside them.	[]	["logs", "data/cache"] will ignore the whole logs folder and everything in data/cache/
ignoredFiles	Individual files (relative paths) to skip.	[]	["level.dat_old", "stats/player.json"] – useful for one-off files rather than folders
ignoredFilesRegex	Java-style regular-expression pattern – any file whose relative path matches will be skipped.	""	".*\\.temp$" skips everything ending in .temp (leave empty to disable)

info

Check the rules carefully before running your server long-term – a typo or over-broad regex can mean important files are never backed up.

Server Config

Configuration	Description	Default	Notes/Examples
commandsCheatsDisabled	Allows backup commands to work even when cheats are disabled. Recommended for single-player mode.	false	If enabled (true), users on servers can trigger commands without enabling cheats.
messagesForEveryone	Sends backup messages to all users. Disable if only users with permission level 2 or higher should receive them.	true	Example: Set to false to notify admins/operators only.