mc restore

mc restore [OPTIONS]

Replaces the world with one restored from a backup. The instance must be stopped.

The world being replaced is moved aside rather than deleted; if the restore fails or is cancelled with Ctrl-C, the partially extracted world is removed, the original is put back, and the command reports the failure. One set-aside world is kept until the next restore replaces it.

A restore killed with no chance to clean up (power loss, SIGKILL) can leave no world in place while the set-aside copy still exists. mc run refuses to start in that state — instead of silently generating a fresh world — and explains how to recover: run mc restore again, or mc restore --undo to put the previous world back.

Undoing a restore

--undo puts the world set aside by the last restore back in place. When a world is currently present the two are swapped — nothing is deleted, and undoing again swaps back.

Options

• --list — list the available backups instead of restoring. Shows both automatic (timestamped) and named backups; (latest) marks the newest automatic one.
• --backup <BACKUP> — the backup to restore, by the filename shown by --list. Defaults to the most recent automatic backup; named backups are only restored when passed explicitly.
• --undo — put the world set aside by the last restore back in place, swapping it with the current world.
• --manifest-path <PATH> — path to mc.kdl. Defaults to ./mc.kdl.

Examples

mc restore --list

myserver_pre-update.tar.gz
myserver_2026-07-15_15-00-00.tar.gz (latest)
myserver_2026-07-14_15-00-00.tar.gz

mc restore
mc restore --backup myserver_pre-update.tar.gz
mc restore --undo