Datapacks installation guide

Datapacks are small mods that fully works on Vanilla Minecraft without using any mod loaders. They allow you to modify the game in many ways and are easy to develop and use.

From this document you will learn how to install datapacks on your new Minecraft world, already existing saves and servers. The installation process is generally the same for all datapacks and will take you no longer than 5 minutes.

Attention! The following guide was made when 1.20 was the most recent Minecraft version and was made for it. The things in game can change in the future. If you spot some differences, generally need help with installation or need a guide for older version of the game, please visit my Support Discord.

You can download datapacks from many sources. The list include: Modrinth, CurseForge, Planet Minecraft and more. Once you find datapack you want, download it for the version of the Minecraft, you want to use. This is very important as Mojang often introduces changes to datapacks along with game updates. That might cause older datapacks to not work on the newest Minecraft releases and vice versa.

Once you download the datapack, you should be able to find a ZIP archive with the datapack in your downloads folder.

Next steps will be different depending on the world, you want to install datapack on. This guide will show you how to install this datapack on:

• New Minecraft worlds
• Already existing Minecraft saves
• Minecraft server

Please scroll down to the case that matches your needs.

Open your game from the launcher of your choosing.

Once the game is loaded click Singleplayer.

If you haven’t created any world yet, game will take you to the world creation screen. If that isn’t the case, click Create New World.

Next, choose More tab at the top and click Data Packs in the middle of the game’s window. You’ll see a menu titled “Select Data Packs”.

At the bottom of this menu you’ll find two buttons, click the left one labeled: Open Pack Folder. Your File Explorer will open on the empty folder. Open another window with File Explorer – or another tab if you’re using Windows 11 – and navigate to your downloads folder.

Once in the downloads folder, locate the downloaded Datapack. Drag and drop it in the directory opened by Minecraft. You can also use Copy and Paste function. Right-click the datapack file and click Copy. Go back to the directory opened by the game and right-click the empty space of your File Explorer. Click Paste.

You can close your File Explorer now and get back to the Minecraft. You will notice that on the left side of the menu, new option appeared with the name of the file, you just moved.

Double click the datapack to move it to the right side of the menu. Now you can click Done and end the world creation.

Congratulation! You have successfully installed datapack on your new Minecraft world!

Open the game and click Singleplayer in the Main Menu.

Select the world you want to install datapack on and click it once to highlight it.

At the bottom of game’s window click Edit button, and next click Open World Folder on the Edit World menu. You will see your File Explorer opening with the directory of that save file.

Find the folder called datapacks and open it. Now, open another File Explorer window – or another tab if you’re using Windows 11 – and navigate to your downloads folder.

In downloads find the datapack and move it to the datapacks folder. You can use Copy and Paste function to do that. Right-click the datapack file and click Copy. Go back to the datapacks folder and right-click the empty space of your File Explorer. Click Paste.

Now you can close File explorer and get back to the game. At the bottom click Save. Now you can open your world and datapack will be working!

Congratulation! You have successfully installed datapack on your existing Minecraft save!

Make sure that you have started your Minecraft server before and all the files have been created.

If your Minecraft server is currently working, close it for the installation time.

Navigate to yours Minecraft server home directory. Find folder called world and open it. Next, find folder called datapacks and move there.

Move downloaded datapack to that directory and start your server. Datapack should be automatically enabled and work on the server for all players even if they doesn’t have it.