We have a video tutorial for installing Minecraft Forge:
Forge is a highly popular Minecraft server type that allows adding new content to Minecraft via mods.
Remember: To join your Minecraft Forge server, you must also be running Minecraft Forge on your PC. See our guide here for steps on how to install it.
AUTOMATIC FORGE INSTALLATIONS
Almost all of the latest Forge builds for every Minecraft version are available as a server type.
Note: It is strongly recommended to reset your server before changing server type to avoid any conflicts or crashes on your server.
- Stop your server.
- (Optional) Reset your server.
- Set your Server Type to preferred Forge version. If you do not see the preferred version, refer to manually installing Forge.
- Restart your server to install the latest Forge version.
- You can now install Mods using our guide on How to install Forge mods on your Minecraft Server.
MANUALLY INSTALLING FORGE
Note: As of a structure change in Forge 1.18+, it can only be installed using the automatic forge installations. When wanting to install Forge 1.18+ please refer to the part above.
- Download the ‘Installer’ for your desired version of Forge at: https://files.minecraftforge.net/
- Run the installer and select ‘Install server’.
- Select a location to install Forge. We recommend just creating a temporary folder on your Desktop to install the files to.
- Click ‘Ok’ and the installer will begin downloading the Forge files into the folder you have specified. Wait until the files have been downloaded before proceeding to the next step.
- Rename the Forge Universal JAR file to ‘custom-javaX.jar’. In here, X should be replaced with the Java version relative to the Minecraft version you are running.
Java 8: Forge 1.6.4 - Forge 1.12.2
Java 11: Forge 1.13 - Forge 1.16.5
Java 16: Forge 1.17 - 1.17.2
Java 17: Forge 1.18 - 1.18.1
The filename will look similar to ‘forge-1.12.2-14.23.1.2560-universal.jar’ by default. However, its numbers will vary slightly. The correct file can be seen highlighted in the screenshot below (but remember the numbers will differ slightly to our example!):
- Upload the generated files to your server via FTP. As there are multiple files, it’s best to use an FTP client such as FileZilla rather than the web FTP interface (click here to read our FileZilla tutorial).
Be sure to only upload the files that were generated (and not the directory you created). Simply select the multiple files that were generated and upload them to the base directory (root/default directory) of your FTP.
- On the control panel, set your ‘Server Type’ to the Custom JAR option as seen in the image below:
- Start your server.
- You can now install Mods using our guide on How to install Forge mods on your Minecraft Server.
