How to edit level.dat in Minecraft (Java Edition)

Almost every "how do I change my world without cheats?" question in Minecraft comes back to one file: level.dat. It stores the world's game mode, game rules, spawn point, time, difficulty, seed, and a lot more. Because it is a normal file on disk, you can edit it directly with an NBT editor - no cheats, no commands, no server plugins required.

Where is level.dat?

In Java Edition, every world is a folder inside your .minecraft directory, and level.dat sits directly inside that world folder:

.minecraft/saves/<world name>/level.dat

On Windows the .minecraft folder is usually at %APPDATA%\.minecraft, on macOS at ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft, and on Linux at ~/.minecraft. On a dedicated server, level.dat is inside the world folder you configured in server.properties (often called "world").

The two rules before you touch anything

1. Back up the whole world folder first. Copy it somewhere safe, or at least copy level.dat to level.dat.bak. Invalid NBT can stop a world from loading, so you always want a way back.
2. Stop the game or server before editing. Minecraft writes world data to disk when it saves, and a running game or server can silently overwrite your manual changes. On a server, use the stop command and wait for it to shut down completely before replacing files.

How to edit level.dat with Chunkweave

Chunkweave opens Java Edition level.dat files in your browser, shows the typed NBT tree, and exports a separate copy. Nothing is uploaded; the file is processed locally on your device.

1. Back up the world folder (copy level.dat to level.dat.bak at minimum).
2. Open the Chunkweave NBT editor and select level.dat from your world folder.
3. Expand the Data compound to reach the tag you want to change.
4. Edit the value with the type-aware controls and review the staged change.
5. Download the edited copy as a separate file.
6. Rename the original level.dat to level.dat_old, place the new file in the world folder, and load the world to test it.

The most useful edits

Change the game mode

The game mode is stored in Data/GameType. Edit it to 0 for Survival, 1 for Creative, 2 for Adventure, or 3 for Spectator. This works even when cheats are disabled, because you are changing the saved world state rather than running a command.

Change game rules such as keepInventory

Game rules live in Data/GameRules. For example, set keepInventory to 1 to keep items on death. See our keepInventory guide for the full walkthrough.

Move the spawn point

The world spawn is stored in Data/SpawnX, Data/SpawnY, and Data/SpawnZ as integers. Set the coordinates you want, and new players will spawn there.

Change the time of day

Data/DayTime stores the world time in ticks (20 ticks per second). The most common values are 0 for sunrise, 6000 for midday, 12000 for sunset, and 18000 for midnight. To freeze time entirely, set the doDaylightCycle game rule to 0.

Change difficulty

Data/Difficulty stores a byte value: 0 for Peaceful, 1 for Easy, 2 for Normal, and 3 for Hard. Note that the game may still enforce a locked difficulty if you enabled it in the world options.

Change the world seed

In modern Java Edition versions the seed is stored in Data/WorldGenSettings/seed as a long integer. Changing it only affects terrain generated after the change; chunks that already exist are not regenerated.

Where is player data stored?

In singleplayer, your player data is stored inside level.dat under the Player compound. On a server, each player has a separate UUID-named .dat file in the playerdata folder. The difference trips up a lot of people, so read the playerdata guide before you go looking for the wrong file.