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The world data, which includes player inventories and player inventories is saved to a folder under the current working directory of server.

The level-name setting of server.properties determines the name of the folder, which defaults to world. This setting can be easily changed to create a new environment and toggle between saves.

Vanilla server commands for saving/backups

/save/all - forces server to save. /saveoff - disables saving. You should definitely execute this before making a backup of a running server to ensure that the server doesn't save while you're copying, which could result in a corrupt backup. /save-on - re-enables saving.

Thank you! I didn't know to disable saving while making backups. - aedia Jun 22, 2011 14:27

i saved the server to my desktop so were will the directory be?? User14851 Nov 20, 2011 8:22

Do you know if you can run the save-off/save-on commands from batch jobs? - mpontillo Apr 26, 2012 at 14:53

@Mike You can also look into plugins for backups such as Bukkit Backup or other Bukkit backup plug-ins. I also recommend mcrcon because it allows you to run commands remotely. - Schism Sep 8, 2012 at 19:23

There should be a folder called "world" in the directory that you are running the server. There are all files that your server will need to run in that directory. The region folder in the world folder is the most important. It contains all of the "block information". The world directory also contains the players folder. This folder stores information about the players that have connected (inventories, etc.). (Note that the directory can only be named world if server.properties hasn't changed its level-name property.

This information applies to both a Vanilla and Bukkit multiplayer server.

Backup the entire world directory. MINECRAFT SERVERS