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GuidesGuidesGive your server a polished tab list and a sidebar scoreboard — rank prefixes, a header and footer, sorted player names, and live stats — with the TAB plugin and PlaceholderAPI.
Two of the fastest ways to make a server look run-well cost almost nothing: a tidy tab list (the player list you see holding Tab) with rank prefixes and a header, and a sidebar scoreboard showing live stats down the right of the screen. The TAB plugin does both, plus nametags and a bossbar, from one config. This guide gets you a clean result and explains the pieces so you can shape your own.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| You need | A plugin-capable server (Purpur, PaperSpigot, Spigot family) and TAB from the Plugins page |
| Nice to have | LuckPerms for ranks and PlaceholderAPI for live values |
| Plan | Any |
TAB is a bundle of related display features, all edited from /plugins/TAB/:
| Feature | What it is |
|---|---|
| Tab list | The header/footer and each player's prefix, name, and suffix in the Tab overlay |
| Sorting | The order players appear in the tab list — usually by rank |
| Nametags | The prefix/suffix floating above players' heads |
| Scoreboard | The sidebar objective down the right of the screen |
| Bossbar | A bar across the top (announcements, timers) |
You don't have to use all of it. Most servers want the tab list and the scoreboard, and leave the rest off.
TAB's main file is /plugins/TAB/config.yml. Two pieces give you 90% of the result:
tabprefix/tabsuffix, so admins show up with [Admin] in a color and members plainer.Because TAB supports PlaceholderAPI, the header can show live values — %online% players, the time, a MOTD line. Install PlaceholderAPI first, test the placeholder with /papi parse me ..., then drop it into TAB's config.
🎯 Good to know: Rank prefixes in the tab list usually come from your permissions plugin, not from TAB directly — TAB reads the groups LuckPerms defines. Set your rank ladder up first (LuckPerms ranks) and TAB has something to sort and color.
The scoreboard is a named objective shown on the right. In TAB you define a title and a list of lines, each line being text — often with placeholders — that updates live. A typical survival scoreboard:
Title: MY SERVER
Line 1: Player: %player_name%
Line 2: Balance: $%vault_eco_balance%
Line 3: Online: %online%
Each line is just a string in TAB's scoreboard config, and the values fill in via PlaceholderAPI per player. Keep it short — a handful of lines reads better than a cluttered wall.
⚠️ Heads up: TAB's config layout — file names, section names, whether the scoreboard lives in
config.ymlor its own file — has changed across major versions. The concepts above (header/footer, per-group prefixes, scoreboard title + lines) are stable; the exact keys are not. Follow the TAB wiki for your installed version rather than copying an old config wholesale.
If all you want is a quick sidebar and you'd rather not add a plugin, vanilla Minecraft has a built-in scoreboard system driven by the /scoreboard command (/scoreboard objectives add, then display it in the sidebar slot). It's fiddly and static compared to TAB, but it needs nothing installed. For anything with prefixes, sorting, or live per-player values, TAB is far less work.
After editing TAB's files, run /tab reload to apply without a full restart (or restart the server). Watch the console for TAB reporting a clean reload — a YAML typo will show up there, and the plugin configs guide covers reading those errors.
Join the server and hold Tab: your header, footer, and rank prefixes should be there, players sorted by rank. The scoreboard should sit on the right with its lines filled in — if a line shows a raw %placeholder%, that's a PlaceholderAPI issue, not a TAB one (check /papi list).
/tab reload throws an error — a YAML mistake in TAB's config. The console names the line; YAML without tears explains the common ones.