How to change your server's MOTD and icon

The server list entry is your first impression. A clear message and a small picture make a server look cared for, and take about five minutes to set up. Both are changed with a file edit and a restart.

The message of the day (MOTD)

The MOTD is the two lines of text under your server's name in the multiplayer list.

1. Stop the server, or be ready to restart it.
2. Open server.properties in the file manager. Settings in that file are described in Editing server.properties.
3. Find the line starting motd= and change it:

motd=Welcome to the server!\nNew players: read the rules at spawn

4. Save and restart. The change appears in players' lists after they refresh.

Some details that trip people up:

• Use \n for a line break. The list shows two lines only, so anything beyond that is cut off.
• Keep each line short. Long lines are clipped, and the width differs between screens.
• The setting does not accept the usual & colour codes. Vanilla uses the section sign, written as § in this file, followed by a colour or style letter. For example §a is green and §l is bold.

motd=§6My Server §f- §aSurvival 1.21

That gives a gold name, a white dash and a green description. §r resets formatting, which is useful between colours.

Some server types let you use friendlier tools. A plugin such as MiniMOTD lets you write with & codes or modern colours, rotate several messages, and show a custom player count. Install it like any plugin, as shown in How to install plugins on your Minecraft server.

The server icon

The icon is the small square picture to the left of your server's name.

1. Prepare an image that is exactly 64 by 64 pixels and saved as PNG.
2. Name it server-icon.png, all lowercase.
3. Upload it to the main server folder, next to server.properties, not into a subfolder.
4. Restart the server.

If the image is the wrong size, the icon does not appear at all. This is the most common reason it fails. Check these too:

• The file name is exact, including the .png extension. Windows may hide extensions, so a file called server-icon.png.png is easy to create by accident.
• It is a real PNG and not a renamed JPEG.
• The image is simple. At 64 pixels, fine detail disappears, so bold shapes and a plain background read best.

Players may need to refresh the server list, or restart the game, because the client caches icons.

Other things shown in the list

• Player count and slots. The maximum is set with max-players in server.properties.
• Version. It shows your server's Minecraft version. If a player sees "Outdated client" or "Outdated server", see How to fix outdated client or outdated server errors.
• Ping. The bars show how quickly the server answers. A slow ping usually means distance, not a problem with the server. See Connection timed out vs connection refused if a server will not respond at all.

A tidy MOTD that works

A good MOTD tells people what the server is and one thing worth knowing now:

• Line 1: the name and version.
• Line 2: the mode, an event, or a short rule, like "Survival, no griefing, Discord in /info".

Update it when something changes, such as a new season or a maintenance window. A fresh MOTD signals an active server.

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Still stuck? Open a ticket on Discord - run /ticket in any channel, pick a department, and include your Server ID or Invoice ID so we can jump straight in.