Articles on: Minecraft

Transfer your server from another provider

Lilypad's industry-leading server importer allows you to transfer your server's files from another provider with ease. The guide below will help you transfer your files from a number of hosting providers, including BisectHosting, Shockbyte and Apex Hosting, and free providers like Play Hosting, Minehut and Aternos, as well as any other provider which lets you access your files.

This feature is currently in beta. Please let us know if you run into any issues and we'll be happy to help — we can move your server manually if needed.

Head to our game panel at panel.lilypad.gg and select your server.
Go to the Files tab and click the New button in the top-right, followed by Server import.
You should be presented with a list of hosting providers for which we support automatic server transfers. Select your hosting provider, press Next and you'll be guided through the specific process to get your files moved across.

Once done, if you're using a custom domain, make sure to reconfigure any DNS records pointing to your server (we have a guide on that here). If you want to create a free subdomain, you can do that via the Network tab in our panel.

Keep in mind any schedules (automatic backups + restarts) and subusers will need to be recreated in the Lilypad panel.

Have MySQL databases that need to be migrated? You can use a tool like HeidiSQL or MySQL Workbench to dump/export your current databases, then recreate them on Lilypad, import the database dump and reconfigure your plugins.

If your hosting provider isn't here, don't worry, it's still super easy. Click the Another hosting provider or self-hosted button and follow the steps provided.

Free hosting providers like Play Hosting, Minehut and Aternos don't provide SFTP/FTP access to your server files on their free plans, but there are alternative ways to transfer them:

Migrating from Play Hosting

In the Play Hosting control panel, select your server and wait for it to come out of limbo. This usually doesn't take long, but can occasionally take a while if there are lots of users in the queue. Once ready, go to the Files tab, select all your files and press Download at the bottom followed by Download as .tar.gz.

This will give you a .tar.gz file you can upload to your Lilypad server via the Files tab and click to extract.

Migrating from Minehut

In your Minehut dashboard, start/activate your server, then go to the File Manager tab and select all your files before pressing the Download button at the bottom.

That should give you a .zip file you can upload to your Lilypad server's Files tab and click to extract.

Migrating from Aternos

You shouldn't need to start your server to download your files. Go to the Aternos dashboard and click the Files tab on the left, then select all your files and press Download.

This will download a .zip file you can upload to the Files tab in your Lilypad server's panel, then click it to extract. You will also need to install the necessary server version for your world via the Software tab on Lilypad, as this isn't included in the Aternos download.

Updated on: 24/08/2026

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