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Minecraft Bedrock: Installing Add-ons

Learn how to install add-ons on your Minecraft Bedrock server in ZapX with a click or manually, and activate them in your world → Learn more now

10 November 20264 min read3 Views0 helpful

Introduction

Minecraft Bedrock Edition natively supports add-ons and has a huge community that lets you expand gameplay with your friends. An add-on consists of a Behavior Pack (game behavior) and/or a Resource Pack (textures, sounds, models). In this guide, we'll show you how to install and activate add-ons on your Minecraft Bedrock server in ZapX.

Method 2: Add an add-on to an existing world

This method takes a little more work, but it lets you keep your existing server world and all your progress.

Extract the add-on

.mcaddon and .mcpack files are ZIP archives. Extract them on your PC, for example with 7-Zip: Right-click the file, then select 7-Zip and Extract to with the file's name as the folder name. An .mcaddon file usually contains additional .mcpack files, which you'll also need to extract.

When you're done, you'll have a folder for each pack with a manifest.json file directly inside it. You can usually tell whether it's a Behavior Pack or a Resource Pack from the folder name: Resource Packs have RP in the name, and Behavior Packs have BP. To confirm, check the manifest.json: In the modules section, Behavior Packs have "type": "data", while Resource Packs have "type": "resources".

Upload the packs

Stop your server in ZapX and open the Files tab. Upload the pack folders to these directories:

PackFolder on the server
Behavior Pack (BP)behavior_packs
Resource Pack (RP)resource_packs

For larger folders, it's easiest to upload them via SFTP using FileZilla or WinSCP. You can also find your login details in the Files tab. For more information, see our guide Access via SFTP.

Warning

Upload the correct folder. The manifest.json must be directly inside the uploaded pack folder, for example behavior_packs/MyAddon_BP/manifest.json, not in another subfolder.

Activate the packs in your world

To make your world load the packs, add them to two files in your world's folder. Your world is located in the worlds folder under the name specified in the World Folder startup parameter. The default is worlds/Bedrock level.

  1. Open the Behavior Pack's manifest.json and note the uuid and version values in the header section.
  2. In your world folder, open the world_behavior_packs.json file. If it doesn't exist yet, create it.
  3. Add the pack as shown below, replacing the placeholders with your values:
json
[
  {
    "pack_id": "UUID HIER",
    "version": [1, 0, 0]
  }
]
  1. Repeat these steps for the Resource Pack using the world_resource_packs.json file in the same folder.
Info

Adding multiple packs Add each additional pack as another entry in the list. Separate entries with a comma, but don't add one after the last entry:

json
[
  { "pack_id": "UUID PACK 1", "version": [1, 0, 0] },
  { "pack_id": "UUID PACK 2", "version": [2, 1, 0] }
]

If you want all players to use your server's Resource Packs, set the following line in server.properties: texturepack-required=true.

Check your changes

Start your server, connect to it, and check that the add-ons are working. You can see pack-related error messages in the Console at startup. Common causes include an incorrect pack_id or version, a pack folder that's nested one level too deep, or an add-on that's incompatible with your server version.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The easiest way is through the Add-ons tab: Install add-ons and Texture Packs from CurseForge with a click, and ZapX will add them to your current world. They'll be active after a restart. Add-ons that aren't available there can be installed manually in the behavior_packs and resource_packs folders.
Upload Behavior Packs to the behavior_packs folder and Resource Packs to the resource_packs folder, either through the Files tab or via SFTP. The manifest.json must be directly inside the uploaded pack folder.
Add the uuid and version from manifest.json as pack_id and version in the world_behavior_packs.json or world_resource_packs.json file in your world folder, then restart the server.

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