How to Change the Spawn Protection on a Minecraft Server

Spawn protection stops players who aren't operators from placing or breaking blocks near the world spawn. By default it covers 16 blocks in each direction.

Change it

1. Open your server and go to Files.
2. Click server.properties. It opens in the Minecraft Server Properties editor.
3. Use Search for property name... to find the setting.
4. Set spawn-protection to the number of blocks you want protected around spawn. 0 turns it off.
5. Save and restart the server from Console.

Things to know

• Operators can always build at spawn. If you're an operator you won't notice it; test with a player who isn't.
• It does nothing until there's an operator. Minecraft only turns spawn protection on once the server has at least one operator.
• It protects the area around the world spawn, which you can move with setworldspawn.