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Tom Stone
Written By
Tom Stone
Published
3/1/17

Tips for New Realms Players

Make the most of your own online world

Minecraft Realms is an online service, run by us, just for you and your friends. It lets you keep your Minecraft world online and always accessible, even when you log-off. It's safe, too! Only people you invite can join your world, and what you do there is up to you: create, survive or compete!

You can get Realms for Windows 10 / Pocket edition and PC / Mac versions of Minecraft! Here are some handy hints so you can get the most out of your Realm!

Backing up Your Realm

Your Minecraft world and all its settings are protected by our servers, meaning no matter how long you're offline, your Realm will be exactly as you left it when you return! Still, it's never a bad idea to keep backups of your Realms. Say you accidentally burn down a village, or build a 100ft Creeper statue that haunts your nightmares (we've all been there). Then you can just restore your Realm from a previous backup.

In Windows 10 / Pocket Edition just go into Edit Realm in your Realms menu. You'll see an option to Download World. Make sure there's enough room to store it on your device!

Once a world has been downloaded, you can enjoy it in single-player forever, or just keep it as a handy backup.

In the PC / Mac version of Minecraft, manually back up your Realm by simply closing and then reopening the Realm. Whenever you do this, it instantly creates a backup!

This Realm belongs to our awesome artist, Ninni. She and her friends built it all in Survival mode!

Restoring and Replacing your Realm

As long as you back up your realms frequently, restoring them is easy.

For PC / Mac, select the Realms Backups button. There'll be a timestamp on each of your backups, and an option to restore them.

On Windows 10 / Pocket Edition, select Replace World and then simply upload a previously downloaded world from your device.

Resetting your Realm

Listen, Realm. It's not you, it's us. We've had fun and all, but now it's time for us both to move on. That's why on PC / Mac we're pressing Reset Realm in the Realms menu and then Create a New World. On Windows 10 / Pocket Edition, selec Reset World. No hard feelings? Super. Well, goodbye forever!

Adding Players

You don't have to fear any random strangers invading your Realm. Only the friends you choose to invite can join.

On Windows 10 / Pocket Edition your friend will need to have an Xbox Live account. This is easy and free to make on Xbox.com. Once you've added them as a friend, you should be able to add the player from your Friends List – just press the + button next to their name.

On PC / Mac, select the Players tab in the Configure Realm menu. Select Invite Player and then type in their username like this:

Type a friend's username and press Invite Player! If they don't accept, never speak to them again.

Removing Players

You can find the names of everyone in your Realm on the Players screen. Then, to boot them out:

On Windows 10 / Pocket Edition, select the … button and then the minus symbol. On PC / Mac, select the red X next to a players name.

Gently remind your friends you can do this whenever you see them acting suspiciously or filling your house with TNT blocks. If you're in someone else's Realm they can do this to you at any time - so BEHAVE!

Here we see Marsh in our Realm, pulling one of his classic 'Marsh pranks'. He appears to have replaced all the cobblestone blocks of our house with TNT blocks. Ho ho ho! Good one, Marsh!
Now that we've finished laughing, let's boot Marsh from our Realm. In the Players menu we simply press the red X next to his name. Don't feel bad - you can reinvite players you've removed!
Furious, Marsh decides to boot me out of his Realm on the Windows 10/Pocket edition. Go into Settings and then Members. Then select the ... button and the minus symbol. Owch, Marsh. Owch.

Promoting a Player to Operator

Operators can help build and manage your Realm with slash commands, giving them powers like being able to send private messages and set the world spawn point. Operators can't invite or remove players but you should still pick a player you trust to promote! Go to the Players screen and you'll see this symbol next to each players name:

Selecting it will promote the player to Operator. If they go mad with power, just select the icon again and they'll be a normal user once more!

Add-ons, Behaviour Packs and Resource Packs

We've dedicated a seperate page to these, with helpful videos and step-by-step instructions. Click here to take a look! Don't forget, if you play on PC / Mac, you can access loads of awesome player-made maps and mini-games that we've approved and collected together just for you!

Now try Realms for free!

Realms is a subscription based service and we want you to be sure it's right for you. So try 30 days on us! Click here to pick and choose your free trial for PC / Mac or Windows 10 / Pocket Edition.

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