Minecraft MOTD generator
Type with ampersand colour codes, watch the preview update, and copy the line into server.properties with the escaping already right.
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- Runs entirely in your browser
- Nothing is sent anywhere
Message of the day, line one: . Line two: .
Over 45 visible characters - the client will cut the line short.
server.properties is read as ISO-8859-1, so the section sign is written as
the escape § rather than
pasted directly. Our panel has a MOTD field that accepts either.
Every colour and formatting code
Type & followed by the character. The panel and
most plugins accept either & or the section sign.
| Code | Name | Hex | Colour |
|---|---|---|---|
| &0 | Black | #000000 | |
| &1 | Dark blue | #0000AA | |
| &2 | Dark green | #00AA00 | |
| &3 | Dark aqua | #00AAAA | |
| &4 | Dark red | #AA0000 | |
| &5 | Dark purple | #AA00AA | |
| &6 | Gold | #FFAA00 | |
| &7 | Grey | #AAAAAA | |
| &8 | Dark grey | #555555 | |
| &9 | Blue | #5555FF | |
| &a | Green | #55FF55 | |
| &b | Aqua | #55FFFF | |
| &c | Red | #FF5555 | |
| &d | Pink | #FF55FF | |
| &e | Yellow | #FFFF55 | |
| &f | White | #FFFFFF |
Stays on until a colour code or &r.
Combines with bold and colour.
Rarely used in a MOTD; it reads as a link.
Good for "was $10, now $5" style lines.
Scrambles constantly. Costs a redraw every frame.
Clears colour and every format at once.
What a MOTD actually is
The MOTD is the two lines of text under your server name in the multiplayer list. It is the only thing a player sees before deciding whether to click, which makes it the most valuable two lines of text your server has and usually the least considered.
It lives in server.properties as a single motd= value, with the two lines separated
by an escape. Colour and formatting come from the section sign followed by a character —
and because that file is read as ISO-8859-1 rather than UTF-8, writing the sign directly
is unreliable. The escape sequence always works, and that is what the copy button
produces.
What tends to go wrong
Ampersands pasted straight into the file. The &a convention belongs to plugins, not
to vanilla. Panels and plugins translate it; server.properties does not. Copy the
generated line rather than what you typed.
Lines that are too long. The client truncates at roughly 45 visible characters per line, without warning. The counter above ignores colour codes because the client does too.
Colour codes clearing your formatting. A colour code resets bold, italic and the rest. For bold red write the colour first, then the format — the other way round, the colour wipes the bold.
A few that work
&aSurvival &8| &f1.21 &8| &7Whitelist open— plain, readable, says what it is.&6&lPIXELMON &8» &fSeason 4 &8| &e/vote for keys— a brand line and an action.&c&lWIPE FRIDAY &8- &7fresh map, blueprints kept— urgency without shouting.
The pattern in all three is one strong colour, one grey separator, and a reason to click. Rainbow MOTDs read as noise at list scale.
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Almost always because the ampersands were pasted into server.properties literally. That file wants the section sign, and because it is read as ISO-8859-1 the reliable way to write it is the escape sequence - which is what the copy button here gives you. Most panels and plugins accept plain ampersands; the raw file does not.
Two lines, and the client cuts each at about 45 visible characters. Colour codes do not count toward that, which is why the counter here ignores them. Long lines are not rejected, they are silently truncated, which is worse.
Not in the vanilla server list. Paper and its forks support hex in chat and in some plugin contexts, but the multiplayer list is limited to the classic sixteen. Anything advertising hex MOTDs is rendering it somewhere else.
On the client, yes - it redraws those characters every frame. Fine for a word, genuinely irritating across a whole line. Nothing happens on the server either way.
The panel has a MOTD field that accepts either ampersands or section signs, so you can paste the raw line. If you would rather edit the file, server.properties is in the file manager and over SFTP like everything else.
Your server could be running before you finish this sentence.
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