How To Change The MOTD On A Minecraft Server

Last modified on May 5, 2022 in control panel

By ApexHosting

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Overview

When getting ready to join a Minecraft server, one of the first things players notice is the little description text on the server. This description is called the MOTD (Message of the Day) and this text normally provides a bit of information related to the server, i.g. Survival Hunger Games, Minigames Server, Down for Maintenance, etc. The MOTD can include colored/styled text and really adds some character to your server. Nearly all successful servers have a well set MOTD. By default, you may see the text as “New Minecraft Server”. This can very easily be changed on your server through the Apex Panel and we will be walking you through each step how.
 

How to change your Message of the Day

Making the MOTD

The MOTD does not have to be made using mctools, we just recommend using this as it helps set the proper color codes/text styles.

1. Head to the mctools website or another similar one.
2. In the first field, you can go ahead and type/format the MOTD how you would like.
3. Once you make the MOTD, locate the “For the server.properties” file and copy the text.

Setting the MOTD

Spigot, Vanilla, Forge, and other regular server types

1. Head to the Apex Panel and stop the server.
2. To the left of the panel click on “Config Files”, then click “Server Settings”.
3. Locate “Message of the Day” and paste the text from mctools.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click on “Save”. Then head back to the main game panel page.
5. Start the server back up.

 
Bungeecord Proxy

1. Head to the proxy page and stop the server.
2. To the left of the panel, click on “FTP File Access” and login.
3. Locate the “config” file and click on “Edit” to the right of it.
4. Navigate to the “Motd=” setting and you can paste in the text. If you have a priority server set, you will need to set the “motd=” field under the “Servers” part of the config as well.
5. Save the file and restart the proxy

 

Common Issues

MOTD still showing “New Minecraft Server”
If the MOTD is still showing the default value, it’s likely that either the server was not restarted or the value set in the server settings was not saved. It could also be that you are running a network such as Bungeecord which if that’s the case you will need to set the MOTD from the config.yml instead of the server settings.
 
Colors are not working
Make sure to not use the & symbol for color-coding unless you are running Bungeecord. We highly recommend using the mctools website to make sure that the color codes are properly set.