Brottweiler’s Logbook

Convert old Minecraft maps to latest version

I had an old map from the alpha/beta release of Minecraft Java Edition I wanted to convert so I could play it with a modern Minecraft version (1.21.10 as of writing), but to convert such a map it needs to be done in steps.

Infdev introduced the Alpha level format, and it was the level format up until beta 1.2. Beta 1.3 introduced the Region file format until release 1.2 which introduced the Anvil file format.

If the map is older than beta 1.3, we can upgrade it with these steps:

  1. Start the map in b1.3 to convert it to Region file format.
  2. Switch to r1.2.5 to convert to Anvil file format.
  3. Switch to the latest version.

If the map is newer than beta 1.3 but older than release 1.2, just skip step 1.

In my past experience, I have encountered issues like empty chests and corrupted chunks, but recently this seems to not have been an issue.

#minecraft