Minecraft MOTD Generator
Design your server MOTD with live preview. Pick colors, add formatting and export for any server platform.
MOTD Editor
Live Preview
Output
How to write a server MOTD
Fill the two lines
A server list entry has room for two lines and no more, so the editor gives you exactly those two.
Colour each part
A colour or format button wraps the selection in the code the client will receive, not in an approximation of it.
Read the preview
The preview draws the entry the way a client does, icon square included, so you can judge the line before it is on a live host.
Copy the right form
server.properties needs the escaped single line form, MiniMessage suits Paper, and the BungeeCord form goes in the proxy config.
How It Works
Design your server MOTD with live preview and copy-paste config.
Java Edition 26.2Checked on against the ChatFormatting codes and the motd keyPage updated
What is a Minecraft MOTD?
MOTD stands for Message of the Day. It is the two-line text that players see beneath your server name in the Minecraft multiplayer server list. A well-crafted MOTD helps your server stand out, communicate updates and attract new players. Those two lines take more than letters: the unicode symbol picker holds the stars, arrows and hearts that the server list font really renders. The 16 classic codes behind those two lines are listed with their hex values under Minecraft color codes, and once the MOTD is live the server status checker reads it back the way a player's server list does.
Minecraft supports 16 color codes and several formatting codes (bold, italic, underline, strikethrough and obfuscated) that you can combine to create eye-catching messages. Colors are applied using the section sign followed by a character, for example §a for green or §l for bold.
The MOTD is configured differently depending on your server software. In server.properties you set the motd= value directly. Spigot and Paper servers can use the modern MiniMessage format with readable XML-like tags. BungeeCord and Velocity proxies use section-sign codes in their configuration files.
This generator lets you design your MOTD visually with a live server-list preview and instantly export it in the correct format for your platform. No more guessing what your MOTD will look like before players see it.
How a MOTD is stored and drawn
| Where it lives | The motd= line in server.properties, or a MiniMessage string in a Paper, Velocity or BungeeCord config. |
|---|---|
| Lines | Two. The client draws the MOTD on two rows and a newline is the only way to reach the second one. |
| Section sign | Colours are a section sign plus one character. server.properties is read as a Latin-1 properties file, so the reliable way to write it is the escape \u00A7. |
| Hex colours | Java 1.16 and up read \u00A7x followed by six colour codes as one hex colour. |
| Format codes | l is bold, o is italic, n is underline, m is strikethrough, k is obfuscated, r drops everything back to plain. |
| Bedrock | Same section codes, but one row of text and no hex colours. |
The section sign codes in the preview are the ChatFormatting entries of the client jar, and motd itself is one of the keys a dedicated server reads out of server.properties. Both were looked up on 8 August 2026, in the files that ship with version 26.2.
How many looks the codes really give you, and what they cost
The buttons above hand you 16 colours and 5 styles. That is not 21 choices, because a colour and a style stack, and it is not unlimited either, because a colour code wipes every style set before it. The preview on this page obeys that rule while you type.
16 colours x 2 to the power of 5 styles = 512 looks one character can haveput the colour in front, or every style behind it is discardedeach code costs 2 characters of the line and shows none of themThe reset order is the part worth remembering. Bold then gold gives you plain gold text, gold then bold gives you what you wanted, and nothing in the file will tell you which one you typed. Build it here and the preview shows the difference before your server list does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about the MOTD
How do I put a colour code in server.properties?
Use the escape where the section sign goes, so a green Online becomes \u00A7aOnline. Pasting the raw section character works on some setups and turns into a question mark on others, because the file is read as Latin-1.
Why does my MOTD show the codes as plain text?
Because the code never became a section sign. An ampersand does nothing in vanilla, a plugin that sets its own MOTD overrides the file, and a proxy in front of the server sends its own motd= instead of the one behind it.
How long can a MOTD be?
There is no character limit in the file, but only two rows are drawn and the client clips whatever runs past the width of the server list entry. Short lines survive every GUI scale, long ones do not.
Can I use hex colours?
On Java 1.16 and up, yes, through the section x form. Older Java clients and Bedrock do not understand it and drop the codes, so a hex MOTD should still read as intended in plain text.
Embed This Tool
Put the motd generator on your own site or server wiki.
<iframe src="https://tools.astroworldmc.com/embed/motd-generator" width="700" height="650" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;" loading="lazy" title="MOTD Generator"></iframe>
