How to Delete Playerdata in Minecraft
Last modified on Aug 21, 2023 in General
By Nathan Young
Overview
While playing with friends on a Minecraft server or enjoying a solo world in singleplayer, there’s no need to consider how the game stores data. This is due to the immense amount of activities to enjoy, such as collecting diamonds or traveling to new dimensions. However, sometimes you and players alike might enable cheats or become server operators to spawn items, blocks, mobs, and other entities. This can lead everyone to a more enjoyable experience, but may become problematic for those wanting to avoid cheating. In some cases, this can even harm the server or world and cause too many issues for players. Regardless of the severity, some may want to delete their character’s progression to restart in the same map. Doing it requires some prior knowledge about Minecraft’s system, as every account has playerdata files that contain their progress in the world. This applies to both multiplayer and solo sessions, which have different processes to remove data. Due to this, we’ll show you how to delete playerdata on your Minecraft server or singleplayer world in this Apex Hosting guide.
Finding Account UUIDs

Before deleting any playerdata files for your Minecraft world, you’ll need to find out your account’s UUID. This is a set of values that are only unique to your character, meaning no one else can have them. Using this is how you’ll be able to locate your playerdata, but becomes more challenging for offline Minecraft servers. With every account having a UUID after purchasing the game, cracked players may suspect they don’t have one. Fortunately, they do and it’s possible to find out for this playerdata removal process. Regardless of you having an online or offline account, review the subsections below accordingly to discover your UUID values. These methods are also used to search for other players, as you may want or need to remove their data too.
Online Players
- Navigate to the Minecraft UUID website, then enter the player’s name in the text box.
- Proceed to press the
Lookup
button to the far right, revealing the account’s information. - Copy and save the
Full UUID
values for the deletion process later on. - Repeat this process until you’re finished with all players.
Cracked Players
- Navigate to Offline UUID Generator, then type your player’s name in the text box.
Note: Multiple usernames require a comma ( , ) for separation, without spaces.
- Afterward, select the
Plain Text
option near the bottom and click theConvert
button. - On the new page, proceed to copy and save all these UUIDs for later.
Deleting Playerdata

Once you’ve saved all the desired UUIDs, your next step is to locate and delete their corresponding playerdata files. Whether this is for a Minecraft server or singleplayer world, it’s possible to accomplish this goal. There’ll be two files with the same UUID, which both should be deleted for the best results. Before you go any further, keep in mind that once these are deleted, all inventory items, experience points, character positions, and other aspects are reset. It’s strongly recommended to backup your files or download them locally to your computer, just in case. With this in mind, follow the steps below for your desired setup to remove playerdata in Minecraft.
Dedicated Servers
- Head towards your Apex server panel, then click
FTP File Access
near the top left. - Type your
Password
in the text box and press theLogin
button to gain access. - Afterward, locate and enter your world folder from the list.
Note: The name of this can be located in the main panel, under the
World
section. - Continue to find and click the playerdata directory once inside of this area.
- Once there, use your previously saved UUIDs to search through the files.
- Upon finding them, press the check mark to the left and click
Delete
at the top. - Repeat this process for all the player files you want to remove from the world.
Singleplayer Worlds
- Open your Minecraft launcher and click
Installations
near the top. - Proceed to hover over any profile and press its
Folder
icon, revealing the local files. - In the newly opened window, locate and enter the
saves
folder from the list. - Once there, navigate towards your singleplayer world folder.
Note: The name of this can be confirmed in-game from the worlds menu. - Afterward, find and enter the playerdata directory in the folder list.
- While inside of this area, select all your desired playerdata files and delete them.
Deleting Plugin Playerdata

Another way progress is stored is sometimes done by your Minecraft plugins on the server. This tends to be associated with custom features, such as in-game money or individual spawn location. It all depends on the exact plugin and its design, making the process similar but always unique. For example, EssentialsX stores this information in a “userdata” folder instead of the “playerdata” directory. Other plugins will have different labels for this, so be cautious while following the instructions below. In some cases, server owners might have to open multiple folders to discover the character data. If there’s none available, then it means that the plugin doesn’t store this information.
- Make your way towards the
FTP File Access
area of your server panel. - Proceed to login with your credentials accordingly to gain access.
- After doing this, continue to locate and enter the plugins directory.
- While inside of the folder, click on your desired plugin that contains playerdata files.
- Depending on its configuration, find a directory labeled “userdata” or something similar.
- Once inside, continue to select all your playerdata files and press
Delete
at the top.
Common Issues
While attempting to delete playerdata for your server’s world, if you are unable to find its folder, remember that you can check the World
section of the main panel. It should be listed with a default generated or custom label for you to save and use during this process. Although, plugins like Multiverse allow you to have many different worlds that are all active without being selected in the panel. This means you have to enter the server and teleport to the map to find its name. Once you’ve found the right one, begin to navigate towards it in the FTP panel to delete playerdata. However, make sure you’re using the correct Server Profile, if enabled, while doing this so no further issues arise.
On rare occasions, you may not be able to find the correct playerdata files. This is commonly experienced on offline servers, as each account has a different UUID compared to online players. This is amplified by the fact that cracked users can switch their name, meaning their ID values change and makes it harder to delete. While finding their UUID, make sure to use all the correct capitalization since that influences the outcome. Once you’ve narrowed down these values, begin to search through the playerdata folder of your world. However, if you’re having this situation occur on online servers, then double check you’ve copied the Full UUID
values. Remember, this is what’s used for labeling the files and cannot be the Trimmed UUID
. If you still can’t find playerdata for specific accounts, then it’s possible that the world hasn’t been saved recently.
After removing some playerdata files and you’ve noticed the wrong ones were deleted, then you must restore them. This is done by either reverting to a previous backup of the world or manually uploading them in the correct folder. In these kinds of situations, we strongly advise contacting our Support team so they can help you. However, if this happened for your singleplayer world, then the best solution is to manually restore it with previously copied files. Without backing up your local documents, there isn’t much to do to resolve the situation.
Useful Links
Minecraft UUID Checker
Offline UUID Generator
How to Backup Your Minecraft Server World
How to Restore a Backup on Minecraft Servers