Minecraft Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This guide will help you install the latest Minecraft Forge and OptiFine.

Step 1. Finding your .minecraft directory

Before you begin, you must find your .minecraft directory. This directory will not exist if you have not run the Minecraft launcher at least once. This tutorial will work from within this folder.

OS Path
Linux ~/.minecraft
Windows %appdata%\.minecraft
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft

In many Linux file managers, dot files (files and folders prefixed with a period .) will be hidden. In Nautilus, press Ctrl + H to toggle the display of dot files.

Step 2. Download Minecraft

First you must download a copy of vanilla Minecraft. Skip this step if you have already downloaded the Minecraft version you would like to use. You can either choose to use the Minecraft launcher or download it manually.

  1. Download the official Minecraft launcher from here, and then open it. In some Linux distributions, you must first set the file's executable bit if opening it with xdg-open.
  2. (Optional) If you want to use a specific version other than the latest version, click the hamburger icon, then "Launch options", then "Add new". Finally, click on your desired Minecraft version from the drop down menu labeled "Version". Save profile when done.
  3. Click "Play". This will download a copy of your chosen Minecraft version. You can then exit out of Minecraft and continue.

Step 3. Copy to a new Minecraft version

  1. In the versions directory of your .minecraft folder, create a copy of your selected vanilla Minecraft version (e.g. 1.12.1) and give the copy a new name. The name of this folder will be the name of your new Minecraft version. For this guide we'll use 1.12.1 OptiForge
    Linux
    cp -R "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1" "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1 OptiForge"
  2. You must also rename the .jar and .json files to match. Rename the new "1.6.2.jar" to "1.6.2 OptiForge.jar", and "1.6.2.json" to "1.6.2 OptiForge.json".
    Linux
    mv "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1.jar" \
      "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1.jar"
    mv "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1.json" \
      "$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1 OptiForge/1.12.1.json"

    Your directory structure should now look something like this:

    • .minecraft
      • versions
        • 1.12.1 OptiForge
          • 1.12.1 OptiForge.jar
          • 1.12.1 OptiForge.json
  3. You now need to modify the .json file and replace the old version name with the new one. Open the .json file in your favorite modern text editor. It is not recommended to use Windows Notepad.
  4. Look for "id":"1.12.1", where 1.12.1 is the vanilla version you chose to start with. Change 1.12.1 to the version name you chose: "id":"1.12.1 OptiForge". Save the file when you're done.
    Linux
    python -c "import sys,json;v=sys.argv[1];f=open('$HOME/.minecraft/versions/\
     '+v+'/'+v+'.json','r+');d=json.load(f);d['id']=v;f.seek(0);f.write(json.dum\
     ps(d,sort_keys=True,indent=2));f.truncate()" "1.12.1 OptiForge""
    Replace the 1.12.1 OptiForge at the end with your version name if it differs.

Step 4. Install Forge and OptiFine into the new version

You will now download Forge and OptiFine into the .json file. The rest of this guide is continued on the next page. You will use the new Minecraft version you just created as the existing version in that guide.

Advertisement