Minecraft Server MOTD: Color Codes, Formatting, and Real Examples That Work

Everything you actually need to write a working Minecraft server MOTD: the full color and formatting code list, server.properties syntax, line breaks, Bedrock vs Java differences, the mistakes that quietly break your MOTD, and a free generator that handles the messy parts.

The first thing a player sees about your Minecraft server is the MOTD. Not the website, not the Discord, not the spawn build — that one little line of text under your server name in the multiplayer list. Get it right and people click. Get it wrong, and they scroll past in half a second.

I have spent more time than I would like to admit fixing broken MOTDs for friends running their own servers. The pattern is always the same: someone copies a fancy-looking line from a forum, drops it into server.properties, restarts the server, and watches it show up in-game as §6Welcome§r §athe§r §cnetwork§r — raw symbols, no colors. The fix usually takes 30 seconds. The frustration of not knowing what to fix takes hours.

This guide is the version of the MOTD reference I wish I had on day one. It covers what an MOTD actually is, every color and formatting code Minecraft accepts, the rules of server.properties that quietly break things, the differences between Java and Bedrock, the six mistakes that account for almost every broken MOTD I have ever seen, ten ready-to-use MOTD examples you can copy today, and how to test the result before showing it to real players. At the end there is a link to the AlaCraft MOTD generator that handles the escape sequences for you, but you will understand what it is doing under the hood by then.

💡 Pro tip: Read the section that matches your problem and skip the rest. The "common mistakes" and "ten examples" sections are the most useful if you are in a hurry.

What an MOTD actually is

MOTD stands for Message of the Day. In a Minecraft context it is the short text shown next to your server name in the multiplayer server list, and it is the single most clicked piece of text your server will ever produce. There are two places it shows up:

The first is the server list. When a player adds your IP, the client sends a Server List Ping (on Java) or a RakNet ping (on Bedrock), and the server replies with a status payload that includes the MOTD. The client renders it directly under the server name in the list, with whatever colors and formatting you encoded.

The second is the join screen on some servers. Vanilla Minecraft does not show the MOTD on connect, but plenty of plugins (EssentialsX, BungeeCord prefixes, Velocity packs) reuse it as a welcome banner when players join. Whether that happens depends on your software stack.

You configure the MOTD in a single line of server.properties, the plain text config file at the root of your server folder. The line looks like this:

motd=A Minecraft Server

That is the default. Every server starts here. The interesting part begins when you add colors, multiple lines, and Unicode flair.

A good MOTD does three things at once: it identifies the server, communicates what makes it different (gamemode, version, region, current event), and uses color sparingly enough that the text still reads at a glance. The MOTDs that pull the most clicks are not the ones with twelve colors and obfuscated magic letters. They are the ones a player can scan in under a second and immediately understand what they are looking at.

✅ Note: Java caps each MOTD line at 59 characters technically and around 45 visible characters once color codes eat into the budget. The MOTD supports two lines, separated by a literal \n. Bedrock plays by different rules — we will get there.

MOTD color codes (the §-codes)

Minecraft uses the section symbol § (Unicode U+00A7) followed by a single character to apply colors. There are sixteen color codes, and they have not changed since the Beta era — they are the original Minecraft palette baked into every client.

Code	Color	Approximate hex
`§0`	Black	`#000000`
`§1`	Dark Blue	`#0000AA`
`§2`	Dark Green	`#00AA00`
`§3`	Dark Aqua	`#00AAAA`
`§4`	Dark Red	`#AA0000`
`§5`	Dark Purple	`#AA00AA`
`§6`	Gold	`#FFAA00`
`§7`	Gray	`#AAAAAA`
`§8`	Dark Gray	`#555555`
`§9`	Blue	`#5555FF`
`§a`	Green	`#55FF55`
`§b`	Aqua	`#55FFFF`
`§c`	Red	`#FF5555`
`§d`	Light Purple	`#FF55FF`
`§e`	Yellow	`#FFFF55`
`§f`	White	`#FFFFFF`

A color code applies to every character after it until something cancels it: another color code, a reset (§r), or the end of the line. So §aWelcome to §6PixelCraft shows "Welcome to" in green and "PixelCraft" in gold. The space between words inherits whatever color came before it, which trips people up when their colors mysteriously bleed across words.

❌ Mistake: Trying hex colors in the MOTD. Modern Minecraft (1.16+) supports hex colors like §#FF8800, but only inside JSON text components — /tellraw, signs, books. The server.properties MOTD is locked to the sixteen legacy colors above. If you need a custom brand color, pick the closest legacy color and accept it.

Formatting codes that change the style

On top of colors, Minecraft accepts six formatting codes:

Code	Effect
`§l`	bold
`§o`	italic
`§n`	underlined
`§m`	strikethrough
`§k`	obfuscated (cycling random characters, "magic" effect)
`§r`	reset (cancels every active color and format)

Order matters. The color code has to come before the formatting code, not after. So §6§lLEGENDARY works (gold and bold), but §l§6LEGENDARY may render as gold without bold on some clients. It is one of those quirks nobody documents until you have already wasted twenty minutes wondering why the bold is not bolding.

The reset code §r is the unsung hero of clean MOTDs. Without it, formatting bleeds. If you write §l§6BOLD GOLD §fwhite text, the white text is still bold — §f only changed the color, not the bold state. The fix is §l§6BOLD GOLD §r§fwhite text. Any time you change context, slip a §r in.

⚠️ Warning: The obfuscated code (§k) looks fun but breaks accessibility. Some launchers strip it, screen readers struggle with it, and important info hidden inside §k is unreadable for some players. Decorative use only — never put your server name or gamemode there.

Writing the MOTD into server.properties

server.properties is a Java .properties file. That format has a few rules that are easy to forget if you have only worked with JSON or YAML.

The first thing to know: the literal § character is not always accepted. On older Java distributions, properties files are read in ISO-8859-1 unless you specifically configure UTF-8, and § may need to be written as the Unicode escape § (six characters: a backslash, a u, and four hex digits). Modern Mojang releases handle UTF-8 fine, and most third-party server panels (Pterodactyl, Aternos, Apex Hosting, Shockbyte, BisectHosting) convert the file before passing it to the JVM, so the literal § works there. If you are editing the file by hand on a vanilla server and your colors do not show up, try § instead.

The second thing: a few characters need escaping at the start of a value. The literal =, :, #, and ! all have meaning in .properties files, so if your MOTD starts with one, prefix it with a backslash. Backslashes themselves need to be doubled: \\. This rarely matters for MOTDs because most start with a color code or a letter, but it is the kind of thing that bites once and you remember forever.

The third: trailing whitespace gets stripped unless you escape it with \ at the end. If you wanted a space at the end of your MOTD for visual padding, the parser silently eats it.

💡 Pro tip: If all of this sounds like a lot to remember, that is exactly why generators exist. The AlaCraft MOTD generator outputs a string that has all the escaping handled, ready to paste straight into server.properties without thinking about which characters need backslashes today.

Two lines and how line breaks actually work

Java MOTDs support two lines. You make a line break by inserting \n — a literal backslash followed by the letter n — inside the MOTD value. You do not press Enter in the file. An actual newline ends the value as far as the parser is concerned, so pressing Enter mid-MOTD just truncates everything after.

motd=§6PixelCraft Network\n§a1.21 Survival + Skyblock

That gives you "PixelCraft Network" in gold on line one and "1.21 Survival + Skyblock" in green on line two. The visible character budget per line is roughly 45 characters. The technical limit is 59, but every two characters of color code (§6, §a, §r) eats into that 59 without rendering visibly. Go over the budget on line one and the second line is silently cut off in the server list.

A trick I learned the hard way: count visible characters, not raw characters, when you are designing the layout. Eight color codes in a 50-character MOTD leaves you 43 characters of actual text, which is tight if you want a tagline.

You can use Unicode decoration too. Hearts, stars, swords, diamonds, arrows — all of them work in Java MOTDs and look great in the server list when used with restraint.

⚠️ Warning: Two requirements for emoji and Unicode symbols. Save server.properties as UTF-8 without BOM (Notepad: File → Save As → choose UTF-8 from the encoding dropdown), and make sure your editor is not auto-converting the symbols. If you see ? marks or garbled bytes in the rendered MOTD, the file encoding is the culprit nine times out of ten.

Bedrock and Java are not the same

Cross-platform servers are now the norm, especially with Geyser and Floodgate making Bedrock players look like Java players to your server software. But MOTD handling diverged years ago and has stayed different.

Feature	Java Edition	Bedrock Edition
Field name	`motd=`	`server-name=` (+ `level-name=`)
Number of lines	2 (with `\n`)	1 only
Color codes (`§0`-`§f`)	✅ Full support	✅ In `server-name`
Formatting (`§l`, `§o`, etc.)	✅ Full support	❌ Stripped or shown raw
Line break (`\n`)	✅ Works	❌ Ignored
Visible length	~45 chars/line	~31 chars before truncation
Unicode (emoji, ★, ⚔)	✅ Works	⚠️ Limited support

💡 Pro tip: If you run cross-platform (Paper + Geyser, Velocity, BungeeCord), design two MOTD versions. A rich two-line MOTD with formatting for Java, and a compact, formatting-free one-liner for Bedrock. Most server software lets you set them independently — just remember to do both.

Ten ready-to-use MOTD examples you can copy

These are real, working MOTDs you can paste into server.properties right now and customize. Each one fits the visible character budget and uses §r correctly to prevent format bleed.

1. Survival vanilla server

motd=§6§l⛏ §eSurvivalCraft §6§l⛏\n§r§a1.21.4 §7│§f Pure vanilla §7│§b SMP

2. PvP / arena server

motd=§4§l⚔ §cBLOOD ARENA §4§l⚔\n§r§7→ §fFFA, KitPvP, Duels §7← §6[1.21]

3. Skyblock server

motd=§b§l☁ §3SkyBlock Heaven §b§l☁\n§r§e★ §fEcon §7│§f Quests §7│§f Co-op §e★

4. Modded technical server

motd=§2§l⚙ §aTech & Magic §2§l⚙\n§r§7Forge 1.20.1 §8│§f 200+ mods §8│§b Open

5. Family-friendly creative server

motd=§d§l✿ §5BuildHaven §d§l✿\n§r§fCreative §7│§f WorldEdit §7│§a Friendly

6. Hardcore / one-life server

motd=§4§l☠ §cHARDCORE NETWORK §4§l☠\n§r§7One life. §fOne chance. §c1.21

7. Lobby / hub of a network

motd=§b§l✦ §3PixelNetwork §b§l✦\n§r§eSurvival §7• §dSkyblock §7• §cPvP §7• §aMore

8. Seasonal / event MOTD (Halloween)

motd=§6§l🎃 §cSpookyCraft §6§l🎃\n§r§7Haunted dungeons §8│§f Event running NOW

9. Christmas / winter event

motd=§b§l❄ §fWinterland §b§l❄\n§r§4Gift drops §7│§a Snowball PvP §7│§e Open

10. Minimal, professional

motd=§f§lPIXELCRAFT§r §7│§f 1.21.4\n§7Survival, Economy, Quests

💡 Pro tip: Notice the pattern — bracket icons (⛏, ⚔, ☁, ⚙) frame the server name on line one, then line two is plain info separated by §7│ divider characters. This rhythm is what makes professional MOTDs feel polished. Steal it.

The six mistakes that quietly break MOTDs

These cover most "my MOTD is broken" tickets I have seen.

❌ Mistake: Raw § symbols showing instead of colors.

The encoding is wrong, or the parser does not see the character correctly. Try § instead of the literal §, and save the file as UTF-8 without BOM. If you are on a hosted panel, look for an "Open in editor" function that handles encoding for you.

❌ Mistake: Colors work in your client but not in someone else's.

Some launchers (notably some accessibility-focused builds) strip color codes from server names by default. Lunar Client and Badlion render colors slightly differently from vanilla. There is nothing you can do server-side here — it is a client preference.

❌ Mistake: The second line gets cut off in the list.

You went over the visible character budget on line one. Color codes do not show up but they count toward the 59-character technical limit. Shorten the text, or move some formatting around to free up characters.

❌ Mistake: Formatting bleeds from one line to the next.

You forgot a §r at the end of line one. Whatever was active — bold, italic, a color — carries over until you cancel it. Always reset between conceptually separate chunks of text.

❌ Mistake: You changed the MOTD and nothing happened.

server.properties is read once on startup. Editing it does not take effect until you restart the server. The /reload command only reloads plugins. Plugins like ServerListMOTD let you edit the MOTD without restarting on Paper/Spigot, but vanilla needs a full stop-start.

❌ Mistake: Emoji or Unicode symbols showing as ?.

Save the file as UTF-8 without BOM. Notepad saves with BOM by default. VS Code, Sublime, and most modern editors give you the option in the bottom-right of the window — switch to "UTF-8" not "UTF-8 with BOM".

MOTD not working? Decision tree

When something is wrong, run through these questions in order. The first "no" tells you what to fix.

Did you restart the server after editing server.properties? If no — restart now. /reload does not reload server.properties. This is the single most common cause.
Are you seeing raw § symbols in-game? If yes — encoding problem. Replace literal § with § and save as UTF-8 without BOM.
Are colors showing but no formatting (bold, italic)? If yes — your code order is wrong. Color must come before format: §6§lTEXT, not §l§6TEXT.
Is the second line missing? If yes — line one is over the visible character budget. Shorten or rebalance colors.
Are colors leaking from one chunk to the next? If yes — add §r between sections.
Is everything fine on Java but broken on Bedrock? If yes — Bedrock does not support \n line breaks or formatting codes. Use a single-line server-name for the Bedrock side.
Are emoji showing as ?? If yes — file encoding. Save as UTF-8 without BOM.

If none of these match, it is probably a client-side issue (a launcher stripping codes, a resource pack overriding the font). There is nothing you can do server-side for that.

Testing your MOTD before announcing the server

Before you put the IP in your Discord and tell people to join, test the MOTD on a real Minecraft client. I cannot count how many times an MOTD looked perfect in the editor and turned out to be unreadable in the actual server list because the in-game font compressed it differently than I expected.

The procedure is:

Start the server with the new server.properties.
Open Minecraft, go to Multiplayer, click Add Server, paste the IP.
The MOTD appears the moment the server responds to the ping.
Take a screenshot at the actual rendered size — this is the size players will see, not whatever you saw in the editor.
Test from at least one other machine if you have access. Monitor scaling and Minecraft's GUI scale option both affect how MOTDs read.

If you cannot easily restart your live server to test, set up a small local server (the vanilla server JAR is under 50 MB) and test there first. Or use one of the online MOTD preview tools that render the §-codes the same way the vanilla client does.

✅ Note: The AlaCraft MOTD generator has a live preview that matches the actual in-game rendering, so you can iterate on the design without restarting anything.

Use the AlaCraft MOTD generator for the messy parts

Once you understand how MOTDs work, the next question is whether you want to memorize all the escape rules or let a tool handle them. After hand-writing maybe two dozen MOTDs over the years, I prefer the tool.

The AlaCraft MOTD generator is a free visual editor that handles every part of the messy bits:

Live preview that renders exactly the way the vanilla Minecraft client renders, so what you see in the editor is what players see in the server list. No surprises after restart.
Color picker with the sixteen Minecraft colors as buttons — click instead of typing §6 codes. Same for the formatting buttons: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, obfuscated. One click each.
Copy-ready output with every § correctly escaped for server.properties. You paste it directly into your config file. No remembering whether you need \\ or § or backslashes in front of equals signs.
Two-line layout with separate editing for line one and line two and a visual character counter that tells you when you are over budget before the second line gets cut off in-game.
Bedrock mode that strips the formatting Bedrock does not support and gives you a clean single-line server-name value. If you run cross-platform, this saves you doing the conversion in your head.
Free, runs entirely in the browser, no login. Nothing about your server gets sent anywhere.

Open the generator in a new tab, build your MOTD visually, copy the output into server.properties, restart the server. Five minutes from idea to live, and you understand what is happening at every step.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use hex colors like §#FF8800 in the MOTD? No. Hex colors only work in in-game JSON text components — signs, books, /tellraw commands, and similar. The server.properties MOTD is limited to the sixteen legacy colors §0 through §f. If you need a custom brand color, pick the closest legacy color and accept it.

Why does my MOTD render fine in my editor but break in Minecraft? Almost always file encoding. Save server.properties as UTF-8 without BOM. Second most common cause: unescaped section symbols. Replace literal § with § if your panel parses it that way.

How long can a Minecraft MOTD be? On Java, each of the two lines holds roughly 45 visible characters. The technical character limit is 59, but invisible color codes count toward it. On Bedrock, the server-name field is around 31 visible characters before the in-game list truncates it.

Do MOTD changes take effect immediately? Not on vanilla. You must restart the server after editing server.properties. On Paper, Spigot, or Purpur with a plugin like ServerListMOTD, you can edit the MOTD at runtime without a restart.

Why is the second line of my MOTD missing? Either line one is too long and pushed past the visible budget, or the line break is wrong. Check that you wrote a literal \n (a backslash followed by an n), not an actual newline in the file.

Should I put the server IP in the MOTD? Usually no. The player just typed the IP to add the server — they have it. Spend those characters on a tagline, the gamemode, the current event, or the version. Anything more useful than information they already have.

Does the MOTD affect SEO or where my server appears in lists? The MOTD is not crawled by Google directly. But Minecraft server listing sites like MinecraftServers.org, MinecraftMP, and TopG show the MOTD on their public server pages, and those pages are indexed. A clear, keyword-rich MOTD can quietly improve your discoverability through those listings.

Can I use the AlaCraft generator for both Java and Bedrock? Yes. The generator has separate output modes — switch to Bedrock mode to get a single-line, formatting-free string suitable for the server-name field, while still using the same visual editor.