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Minecraft Worlds generated by other players can be downloaded by the player and opened in their copy of the game. This guide will show how to play the worlds in either Java or Bedrock.

Download a world[]

Disclaimer 
Be wary of what you download! Look for reputable sites such as the ones listed below and as always, DO NOT DOWNLOAD from sketchy sites! Also, you should always scan a map download using your antivirus.
Gear (item)
This article is a work in progress. 
Please help in the expansion or creation of this article by expanding or improving it. The talk page may contain suggestions.
Note: TODO: Add more sites

Before anything else, download your chosen world with a web browser.
Some reputable sites to download Minecraft worlds are:

Instructions[]

Instructions on how to open the file into minecraft.

Prerequisites[]

  • A file archiving program, like 7zip.
    • This is optional if you just change the extension to .mcworld in Bedrock
  • A copy of the version you want to put the world in

Bedrock Specific Instructions (Android/Fire OS/iOS/Windows 10) (Recommended)[]

After you download a bedrock map, you should already have a file name with .mcworld in it, like FILE_NAME_HERE.mcworld. It should also have a Minecraft icon in it. Just double click it and it will automatically open in Minecraft. You can easily rename bedrock .zip files to a .mcworld simply by changing the extension. MCWORLD is just a special file extension optimized for Minecraft Bedrock.

So, instructions are:

  • Change the extension to .mcworld if it isn't already.
  • Double click the file.

If it didn't automatically open, select Minecraft if asked. If it still doesn't work, follow the guide below.

Java & Bedrock Instructions[]

These instructions are compatible with both Java and Bedrock and will guide you to a step by step process of installing a world to Minecraft.

NOTE that you cannot open Bedrock worlds in Java and vice versa; you will need a converter (such as Chunker) to do that.

Extract the world[]

This is necessary if you have a compressed file.

  1. Extract the compressed file.
  2. If you see a file named level.dat, then you're good to go! Extract the zip/rar to a folder (WORLD)
    1. If you can only see a folder, open it. It might have the files. Extract that folder and rename it to a good name, like (WORLD)

Importing into Minecraft[]

Once you extracted it to a folder, follow these steps:

  1. Open the default directory for Minecraft folder.
    1. On Java Edition, the name of the folder is .minecraft. Below is a table showing the default directory for .minecraft.
OS Location
Windows %APPDATA%\.minecraft
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft
Linux ~/.minecraft
    1. On Bedrock Edition, the name of the folder is games/com.mojang. Below is a table listing these:
Platform Location
Windows (including mobile) %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\games\com.mojang
Android and Fire OS For SD Card users: /SD_CARD_NAME_HERE/Android/data/com.mojang.minecraftpe/files/games/com.mojang
For Internal Storage: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mojang.minecraftpe/files/games/com.mojang
iOS Minecraft/games/com.mojang
  1. Open the saves[Java Edition only] or minecraftWorlds[Bedrock Edition only] folder. You will notice all your worlds are here.
  2. Paste that folder into the mentioned folder.
  3. Open the new folder and check to make sure it has everything in it, all right under WORLD.
  4. Once they're all there, launch the game, and continue below.


Find the folder in Minecraft[]

Here's the hardest part: finding your new save in all your other saves.

  1. Once Minecraft opens, click "Singleplayer" or "Play"
  2. The name of the folder you copied will be the grayed out name under the world name (On Java).
  3. The new save is usually all the way at the bottom, but that's not always the case. You might need to do some hunting.
  4. Once you found it, load it up and have fun! You may have to back up the world if it was saved in a different version of Minecraft.

Alternate Instructions[]

If you found the above instructions confusing, here is a simpler explanation:

  1. Download the world file (usually in .zip or .rar) format
    1. If it is bedrock map, rename to .mcworld, then open in Minecraft
      1. If this doesn't work, continue below
  2. Extract to a new folder (WORLD)
  3. Find the .minecraft or com.mojang folder
  4. Look for the saves or minecraftWorlds folder
  5. Copy-paste the (WORLD) to that folder
  6. Open up Minecraft and find it in your selection of saved worlds

Tips[]

  • On Windows, you can press Win+R to open the run dialog, then paste the Minecraft folder location in there.
  • You can also drag and drop folders to the saves folder, which might save you time from copy-pasting.
  • On Bedrock, you might see jumbled letters in the folder names like fgEHfhgyEbdh. This is normal, and you can always rename them for easy identification.
  • To access map datapacks or resource packs, you can access them by copying the contents inside the map to the main folders.
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