WorldEdit: select areas, build and undo

WorldEdit is the building tool for server administrators: you select an area, fill it with a block, copy it somewhere else or undo everything with a single command. What takes hours by hand, WorldEdit does in seconds. This guide explains selections, the most important commands and the safety nets. The screenshots come from a test server running Paper 1.21.4 with WorldEdit 7.3.9.

Installation and permissions

You find WorldEdit in the panel under Plugins → Browser or in the world protection assistant, which installs it together with WorldGuard and LuckPerms. After the restart /worldedit version answers with the version number.

WorldEdit commands are powerful. Never give them to the default group. In LuckPerms a moderation or builder group receives the node worldedit.*; everyone else stays without it. How to do that is covered in LuckPerms: permissions setup.

Selecting an area

A selection is a cuboid between two corner points. There are three ways to set it:

• Wooden axe: //wand gives you the wooden axe. Left click sets point 1, right click point 2.
• Your own position: //pos1 and //pos2 take the block you are standing on.
• Coordinates: //pos1 0,-60,0 and //pos2 2,-58,2 set the points directly.

The chat confirms every point and, at point 2, reports the size of the selection in blocks. //size shows it again, //sel clears the selection.

Set, replace, undo

//set gold_block fills the selection with gold blocks. The chat reports how many blocks changed. In the example below it is 27 blocks, a cube of three by three by three.

//undo reverts the last step, //redo repeats it. The history depth is set in the configuration (history-size, default 15 steps per player). After a restart the history is empty, so: before you work on a build you care about, take a backup.

More everyday commands:

//replace stone cobblestone
//walls oak_planks
//copy
//paste
//schematic save myhouse

//replace swaps only one block type inside the selection, //walls builds only the outer walls. //copy remembers the selection relative to your position; //paste places it again at your current position. //schematic save writes the clipboard to a file under plugins/WorldEdit/schematics/ so you can paste the build on another server.

Large areas without a crash

Very large selections block the server tick while WorldEdit is working. Two rules help:

• Set a limit. //limit 50000 caps the blocks per operation for yourself; the configuration can enforce a fixed maximum.
• Work in stages. A mountain is not removed with one selection but in slices. Test //undo between the steps.

If an operation still takes long, Paper logs a long tick time. That is normal and not a plugin error.

Common mistakes

• "You don't have permission." The player lacks the WorldEdit node. Check with /lp user Name permission check worldedit.region.set.
• Command without effect. The selection is empty or points into another world. //size shows the state.
• Wrong block name. WorldEdit uses the Minecraft IDs, for example oak_planks, not planks. Tab completion helps.
• //undo finds nothing. The history is per player. You cannot revert what another administrator placed; that is what the backup is for.

Related guides

Regions in which only certain players may build are set up with WorldGuard: protect regions. The general installation of plugins is described in Install and manage plugins.

Sources

• WorldEdit documentation: https://worldedit.enginehub.org/en/latest/
• Command reference: https://worldedit.enginehub.org/en/latest/commands/
• Selections and history: https://worldedit.enginehub.org/en/latest/usage/regions/selections/

WorldEdit: view an example

Our own captures from a demonstration environment. The version and setup shown may differ from your server.

"7.3.9+6959-7adf70b"

"7.3.9+6959-7adf70b"