WorldEdit basics

WorldEdit turns "place ten thousand blocks by hand" into a two-word command. You select a region, then fill it, hollow it, replace one block with another, or copy and paste the whole thing somewhere else — in seconds. It's indispensable for spawn builds and big projects, and its //undo means mistakes cost you nothing. It's also the selection tool WorldGuard uses to mark out protected regions, so the two are usually installed together.

⚠️ Heads up: WorldEdit commands start with a double slash (//set, not /set). That's not a typo — the double slash is how WorldEdit avoids clashing with normal game commands.

1. Make a selection

Almost everything starts with selecting two corners of a box. Grab the selection tool:

//wand

That gives you a wooden axe. Left-click a block to set corner 1, right-click another to set corner 2. The box between them is your selection. You can also set corners by standing on them:

//pos1
//pos2

Check what you've got with //size (counts the blocks). Adjust the box without re-clicking:

//expand 10 up
//contract 5 north
//shift 3 east

2. Fill, hollow, and replace

With a selection made, these are the workhorses:

//set stone            # fill the whole selection with stone
//set air              # clear it out completely
//walls glass          # only the four side walls
//outline glass        # walls + floor + ceiling (a shell)
//replace dirt grass_block   # swap one block type for another
//replace air water    # fill only the empty spaces

Block names are the modern Minecraft IDs (grass_block, oak_planks, glass). You can leave off the minecraft: prefix.

💡 Tip: //replace <from> <to> only touches the <from> block, so it's perfect for surgical changes — turn every torch into lantern, or every stone into deepslate, without disturbing anything else in the selection.

3. Copy, paste, and move

Reuse a build instead of rebuilding it:

//copy      # copies the selection relative to where you stand
//paste     # pastes it relative to where you stand
//cut       # copy, then delete the original
//move 10 east   # shift the selection's blocks over
//stack 3 up     # repeat the selection 3 times in a direction

Because copy/paste are relative to your position, stand in the same spot (relative to the build) when you paste as you did when you copied, and it lands where you expect.

4. The command that saves you: undo

Every WorldEdit operation can be undone:

//undo      # reverse your last operation
//redo      # do it again

This is what makes WorldEdit safe to experiment with. Got the wrong block or the wrong size? //undo and try again. Nothing is permanent until you decide it is.

5. Shapes and brushes (a taste)

WorldEdit also generates shapes and paints with brushes:

//sphere sandstone 10       # a solid sphere, radius 10, where you stand
//cyl water 8 1             # a cylinder (radius 8, height 1) — instant pond
/brush sphere stone 5       # bind a sphere brush to your held item

With a brush bound, right-clicking a distant block sculpts there — great for smoothing terrain. There's a lot more (//smooth, //naturalize, masks with //gmask); the commands above are the stable foundation the rest builds on.

The config file

WorldEdit rarely needs config edits — its behaviour lives in its commands. Its settings are at /plugins/WorldEdit/config.yml. The one thing a busy server sometimes raises:

limits:
  max-blocks-changed:
    default: -1   # -1 = unlimited; set a number to cap per-operation size

Leave it default for personal builds. On a shared server you might cap it so one //set can't try to change millions of blocks at once. Per-rank limits are done with permissions instead.

Verify it works

//wand, left-click and right-click two nearby blocks, then //set glass. If the box fills with glass, you're set — and //undo puts it back.

The honest limits

• WorldEdit is a build tool, not protection. It doesn't stop anyone from editing your world — that's WorldGuard. Anyone with WorldEdit permissions can reshape the map, so gate its commands behind a trusted rank in LuckPerms. This is the single most important thing to get right.
• Big operations cost memory and time. A //set across a huge selection can lag the server or bump into memory limits — larger on the free plan's shared RAM. Work in reasonable chunks; see performance.
• It edits blocks, not logic. It won't wire redstone correctly across a paste, and complex tile-entities can need touching up.
• Command names above have been stable for years; for the full command and mask reference, check WorldEdit's current documentation.

Troubleshooting

• //set says "you're not allowed" — you lack the permission (or op). Grant WorldEdit nodes to your rank in LuckPerms; keep them off regular players.
• A single slash did nothing — WorldEdit uses double slashes. //set, not /set.
• Paste landed in the wrong place — copy/paste are relative to your position; stand consistently, or use //copy then //paste -o to paste at the original coordinates.
• A huge edit lagged or failed — it was too big for available memory. //undo, then work in smaller selections. See Out of memory.

Next steps

• Protect regions with WorldGuard
• Build a rank ladder with LuckPerms
• Fixing Minecraft lag
• Roll back grief with CoreProtect