Minecraft MOTD Generator
Write your server list description with the colour and formatting codes laid out as buttons, watch it render exactly as the Minecraft client draws it, then copy the finished motd= line into server.properties.
Write your MOTD
Two lines, exactly as the server list shows them.
Type your text first, then put the cursor where a colour should start and click a swatch. The § character is inserted for you — you never have to type it.
Start from an example
Each one replaces both lines. Edit freely afterwards.
Check it and copy
This is what players see before joining.
motd=
Writes § directly. Fine for any modern server, and easier to read when you edit the file later.
Opens this MOTD in the editor for whoever you send it to — useful for getting a second opinion before it goes live.
Applying the MOTD to your server
The server only reads server.properties at startup, so the order of these steps matters.
- 1
Stop the server first
A running server rewrites server.properties from memory when it shuts down, so an edit made while it is up will simply be overwritten.
- 2
Open server.properties
It sits in the server root, next to the world folder and server.jar. On our panel it is under Files, and there is a config editor that will do this without SFTP.
- 3
Replace the whole motd= line
Delete the existing line and paste the one from this generator. Do not add quotes around it — server.properties has no quoting, and the quote marks would be printed as text.
- 4
Start the server and look at the list
Your entry in the multiplayer list should match the preview above. If you see raw codes instead of colour, the § characters were lost in transit — come back and copy the \u00A7 form instead.
Minecraft MOTD questions
MOTD stands for "message of the day". It is the description line shown under your server name in the multiplayer list, before anyone connects. It supports colour and formatting codes, and for most players it is the only thing they see about your server before deciding whether to join.
Stop the server, open server.properties in its root directory, and replace everything after motd= with the line this generator produces. Start the server again — the file is only read at startup, so editing it on a running server will be overwritten when that server shuts down.
A colour code is the section sign (§) followed by one character: 0–9 and a–f select one of the 16 colours, while k, l, m, n and o apply obfuscated, bold, strikethrough, underline and italic. §r resets everything back to the default. A colour code also clears any active formatting, which is why §lBold §aGreen renders the green half without bold.
The & prefix is plugin syntax used by Bukkit, Spigot and Paper configuration files. Vanilla server.properties only understands the section sign, so & codes are printed as literal text. Paste your line into the editor above and it will convert them for you.
Two lines, separated by \n in server.properties. The client trims each line to the width of the server entry — roughly 45 characters at the default GUI scale — and appends an ellipsis. Formatting codes take up no visible width but do count toward the raw length of the line.
Both work. server.properties is loaded through Java's Properties reader, which decodes \uXXXX sequences, so \u00A7 is a safe stand-in for § — and the safer choice if your control panel, editor or FTP client has ever mangled special characters on save. This generator can output either form.
Yes. Drop a 64×64 PNG named server-icon.png into the same directory as server.properties and restart. It shows to the left of your MOTD in the server list, and the two together are what make an entry stand out.
Need somewhere to run it?
Our Minecraft servers run on high-clock hardware with NVMe storage, DDoS protection and a panel that lets you edit server.properties without touching SFTP.