Minecraft Forums

So, you were messing around in your .minecraft and you accidentally one of your world folders?

No biggee, it's most likely in your recycling bin! Just restore it from there

BUT WHAT IF IT DOESN'T?!?!?!?

If it's not in there, don't panic! YOU CAN STILL SAVE IT

First thing you're gonna want to do is NOT WRITE ANYTHING TO THE DISK.

Do not create any new files, or modify ANYTHING. Otherwise, this may not work (or it may, it's just not guaranteed)

Download Recuva

This tool allows you to recover files.

For those who want an explanation on how it does that, click the spoiler. Otherwise, keep reading.

Right, so, after you've downloaded and installed it, open it up.

You'll get a screen that shows something like this:

Check the tick box, and click Cancel.

That will bring you to this screen:

In the dropdown box to the left of "Scan", select the drive that Minecraft is stored on. Generally, this is C: (in my case I am using the G: drive)

Then, just click scan!

After it scans (may take a while depending on the amount of stuff on your drive, and the drive speed), you'll have a kinda confusing looking screen like this (ignore the badly-scribbled on parts, as this is one of my storage drives, it had some sensitive info on that i had to cover :P):

These are all the files that have ever been written to your disk.

At the top right, there is a search box. You will use this to find your deleted world.

Put in the path to your Minecraft saves folder, followed by your world folder name.

Something like C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\saves\WORLDNAME (replacing name with the windows username and worldname with the world name)

You'll get something that is narrowed down to this now:

So, you see those files there? This is where it gets tricky...

You're going to have to create all of the folders for your world.

So (PREFERABLY on a different drive than the one you're recovering from), create this filesystem (My world is called "Chess", so i will use that as the world name):

Now, the even moar difficult part!

Time to recover the files into their correct folders.

Select the files "forcedchunks.dat, level.dat (or _evel.dat), level.dat_mcr, level.dat_old, and session.lock" by holding the control key and clicking on each of them.

Right click on one of them, click recover highlighted.

In the window that pops up, find your world folder (again, in my case, "Chess"), and just put them directly inside it.

(NOTICE: For me, my "level.dat" file had become renamed _evel.dat. If this happens to you, simply rename any files that have the wrong name. Double check with another intact world to check them)

Next up, stats files.

For me, there were two people in my world, so I have two stat files. For you, it will be one file for every person ever on your world.

(NOTICE: There will be TWO files for each player, but one of them goes in \world\stats and the other goes in \world\playerdata. Right now i am talking about the ones that say they go in \world\stats OR \world\_tats)

These files here:

Select all of those you have (in my case, two files) and recover them into the stats folder of your world folder (the same way you did before).

Next up, playerdata files. These will be named the same as your stat files, but it will show they go in the \world\playerdata folder, like this:

Select all of those you have (again, in my case, two files), and recover them into your playerdata folder.

Next is the forcedchunks.dat file (for DIM1, or _IM1, NOT DIM-1 or _IM-1)

Select it and recover it into your DIM1 folder (directly, not into the data folder inside it)

Next (you may or may not have this file, depending on if you have been to the end or not in 1.9), the villages_end.dat file.

Recover this to your DIM1\data folder

Now, the other forcedchunks.dat file (the one that says it belongs in DIM-1 or _IM-1)

Recover this to your DIM-1 follder

Next, the villages_nether.dat file (you may or may not have this depending on if you have been to the nether)

Recover this to your DIM-1\data folder

Next, all the region files (EG: r.1.-1.mca):

Recover ALL of these to your \world\region folder

Lastly, "scoreboard.dat, Village.dat, Villages.dat (or _illages.dat), villages_end.dat, and villages_nether.dat (some of these are named the same as other files, but they say they go in the \world\data or \world\_ata folder)"

Recover these files into your data folder.

(NOTE: For me, my villages.dat file was renamed to _illages.dat. Simply rename it correctly)

Before going any further, cross reference the names of ALL the files with another existing world to make sure they are spelled correctly (they ARE case sensitive)

After this, if all went well, your world SHOULD be fully rebuilt! Test it by simply putting it back in your .minecraft\saves folder, and try to load it up.

However, due to the volatility of deleting and recovering files, things may not go well.

For example, after recovering everything, my world would not load nor show up in the list of worlds.

What worked for me, was opening the world in MCEdit, and then assigning it an MC version (as it did not have one assigned)

And voila!

So, I hope this tutorial helped you, and if it did, be sure to share it if you see anyone else having this problem!

If you still need help, or it didn't work, feel free to post below and I'll (attempt to) help you!

Also, this program can be used to recover ANY file (that hasn't already been overwritten), not just MC worlds! (I've personally used it to recover a paper i was writing that I lost due to a power outage)

Glad i could help! (Also glad someone actually saw one of my guides, lol)

:DDDDDDDDD NICE!!1!1!!!!!1!1!

Glad I could help!

It does, and Recuva is Windows-only.

You could possibly run Recuva in WINE, and mount your Linux disk to it, but no promises.

There is a way to "un-delete" files in Linux though: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-ext3-ext4-deleted-files-recovery-howto.html

I can't provide much support for this here, though, as I'm less experienced in Linux.

Orrrr, you could physically move the Linux drive to a Windows PC, mount it, and recover the files that way (theoretically), if you really, really needed those files back.

A much easier way: choose the "saves" folder, go to properties, choose "earlier versions" or something similar, find the version before you deleted your world. Do a back up of your other worlds tho'.

I believe you need to create restore points to use earlier versions. (I just tried to use it, and it wasn't able to recover a throwaway world I deleted).

And that technically isn't undeleting the files, but restoring from a backup Windows made.

But yes, it's a good idea to check that anyway, and yes, backup your worlds.

What if you don't remember the name of your deleted world?

Quote from Ethanml10»

What if you don't remember the name of your deleted world?

Well, then that's a bit of an issue. The file path and folder structure will sorta clue you in (it'll be similar to my screenshots), but you'll basically have to look through the files.

It could be that the level.dat was overwritten, in which case it's not recoverable.

You could try deleting the new level.dat file, and renaming the level.dat_old to level.dat (after backing up your current version of the world), and seeing if that restores anything, but otherwise, it's most likely gone.