Reset or repair a single player without touching the rest of the world

What the server keeps about one player

The world holds three files for every player who ever joined. All three carry the player's UUID in their name, never the username, so a name change on the account keeps the same files.

The paths start inside the world folder, which is world unless level-name says otherwise.

Next to a .dat file you will often find a <uuid>.dat_old. That is the save before the last one. When the .dat file is missing, the server loads the .dat_old in its place, which is why a reset has to remove both.

Did the layout change in 26.1?

Yes. Before 26.1 the same files sat in three separate folders directly inside the world: playerdata, advancements and stats. Java Edition 26.1 gathered them under one players folder, and 26.2 keeps that layout. A world that was created on an older version is rearranged by the server on its first start on 26.1 or newer, so do not move those folders around by hand. On Paper and Purpur the player folders live only in the main world, not in world_nether or world_the_end.

Finding the UUID that belongs to a name

Every file you are about to touch is named after a UUID such as 3f8c2a91-6b0e-4d57-9c1a-7e24b5d0f613, so the first job is matching the name to that string. The server keeps its own lookup list in usercache.json, in the main server folder, with one entry per player who joined recently:

[
  {
    "name": "Kai",
    "uuid": "3f8c2a91-6b0e-4d57-9c1a-7e24b5d0f613",
    "expiresOn": "2026-10-14 19:02:11 +0000"
  }
]

• Open it with Edit on the Files tab. It is a text file, so the panel shows it, and the browser's own search finds the name quickly.
• Operators, whitelist and bans carry UUIDs too. When the player is on one of those lists, ops.json, whitelist.json or banned-players.json shows the same pair of name and UUID.
• Check the date. The Players tab shows how long someone played and when they were last seen, read from the stats files. In world/players/stats the Modified column on the Files tab shows when each file last changed, and a file changed at that moment is a strong hint.

Smaller fixes with commands, while the player is online

Often the player only needs part of their data gone. The game has a command for most of it, and none of them touch other players. In the Console tab you leave out the slash; in chat you type it. Each of these commands needs the player to be online. Otherwise the answer is No player was found.

clear Kai
item replace entity Kai enderchest.0 with air
xp set Kai 0 levels
xp set Kai 0 points
advancement revoke Kai everything
recipe take Kai *
effect clear Kai
tp Kai 0 80 0

The ender chest has no single command that empties all 27 slots. Either run the item replace line 27 times with the slot number counting up, or reset the file with the server stopped, as below. Statistics have no command at all: the stats file is the only way to change them.

A full reset with the server stopped

Deleting the files gives a true fresh start: the player joins at world spawn with nothing, as if for the first time. Do it on a stopped server. A running server keeps an online player's data in memory and writes it back to disk, right over your change.

1. 1

   Look up the UUID

   Find the player's UUID in usercache.json and copy it, so you do not have to read a 36 character string twice.

2. 2

   Stop the server

   Warn whoever is online, then stop it. Wait until it has fully stopped before touching any file.

3. 3

   Make a copy

   In world/players/data, tick the player's .dat and .dat_old, press Zip and download the archive with Download. Do the same for their file in stats and in advancements. The next section has the reason.

4. 4

   Delete what you want gone

   Tick only the files you mean to reset and press Delete. For a clean start that is the .dat, the .dat_old, the stats file and the advancements file. The panel warns that there is no bin to restore them from, which is why the copy comes first.

5. 5

   Start and let the player join

   The server creates new files when the player logs in. Plugin data is a separate matter, so check the plugin section below before you tell them it is done.

Keep a copy you can put back

A reset goes wrong in small ways: the wrong UUID, a player who changes their mind, or a staff member who wiped the account of a friend with a similar name. With the player's own files in a zip, undoing it takes a minute and no one else loses a thing.

1. Stop the server.
2. Upload the zip to the server folder on the Files tab and press Extract on it.
3. Put the files back into world/players/data, stats and advancements, replacing the new ones with the same name.
4. Start the server and let the player join.

A server backup works as well, but Restore on the Backups tab takes the whole server back to that moment, so everybody else loses what they did since. For one player, the zip is the better tool. On a plan with no backup slots, it is the only copy you have, so keep it on your own computer.

Plugins keep their own records

Deleting the world files does nothing to what plugins store in the plugins folder. A player who expected a clean slate can log back in with an empty inventory and still have their money, homes and rank. Most plugins name those records after the same UUID, which makes them easy to find.

EssentialsX as an example

EssentialsX gives every player a file of their own in plugins/Essentials/userdata, called <uuid>.yml. It holds their homes, balance, nickname, mail, mute and jail status and the spot where they last logged out. Delete it with the server stopped to reset all of that at once. Because it is a text file, you can also open it with Edit and remove a single home or change the balance instead. The EssentialsX guide covers homes and kits in more detail.

Ops, whitelist and bans sit outside the world too, in the server folder. A reset does not take away operator rights or lift a ban; use the Players tab or the guide to bans for that.

Bedrock players on a Crossplay plan

On a Crossplay server, Bedrock players join through Floodgate and get a UUID made from their Xbox account ID, in the shape 00000000-0000-0000-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. Their files look the same as everyone else's and sit in the same folders, so the steps above work unchanged. The leading zeros make them easy to pick out in world/players/data.

• Search for the name with its dot. Floodgate puts a . in front of every Bedrock name, so a phone player called RiverFox22 shows up as .RiverFox22 in usercache.json. Spaces in a gamertag become underscores.
• Linked accounts use the Java files. A Bedrock player who linked a Java account plays with that Java account's inventory and position, and their Bedrock progress stays out of reach until they unlink. Reset the Java UUID in that case, not the one with the zeros.
• Leave online mode alone. Changing Verify accounts with Mojang gives Java players new UUIDs, and with it their old files no longer belong to anyone.

More about how both editions share one server is in the Crossplay guide.

Which fix for which problem