Tutorial:Downgrading a world

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Downgrading is the act of loading a world in an older version than the version of that world last loaded. This article explains how to downgrade a Minecraft world, and benefits and consequences of downgrading a world.

Before trying the methods below, it is recommended that the user has a backup of their selected world; after downgrading it may cause the world to be prone to corruption, data loss or crash. See the section "Benefits and consequences" for why.

Java Edition

Downgrading screen

In the singleplayer menu, if a world was last loaded in a version newer than the one being run, the version name of the world is displayed in red. When moving the mouse over the world, an exclamation mark appears to the left of the play button in the world icon on the left. While hovering over the world icon, the exclamation mark turns red and a tooltip appears with red text stating: "World was saved in a newer version, loading this world could cause problems!". Trying to load the world causes a screen to pop up with text that says:

Downgrading a world is not supported
This world was last played in version <version-of-the-world-last-loaded>; you are on version <current-version>. Downgrading a world could cause corruption — we cannot guarantee that it will load or work. If you still want to continue, please make a backup.

The screen also has three buttons: "Create Backup and Load", "I know what I'm doing!", and "Cancel". The actions when clicking are shown in the table below.

Key	Action	Notes
Create Backup and Load	Creates a backup and then proceeds to load the world.	Also shows a toast indicating that the world backed up successfully.
I know what I'm doing!	Opens the world without making a backup.
Cancel	Takes the user back to the world selection screen.

When downgrading a world, the version of the world when it was last loaded will change to the current version.

Before the release version

Downgrading a world to Beta has no change. To downgrade a world to below Beta 1.2_02, rename the world folder to World<number from 1 to 5>, and you will succeed. Attempting to downgrade to Alpha will crash the game or succeed.

Third-party softwares

The contents of this section are not supported by Mojang Studios or the Minecraft Wiki.

Aside from the downgrading screen, one can also use unofficial third-party softwares such as MCC Tool Chest, using tools from the program to convert world chunks from new versions to old versions.

Bedrock Edition

You can't normally downgrade directly or an error will happen. However, there are some workarounds depending on which platform you are on:

Windows

On Windows, one can use Bedrock Launcher, an unofficial launcher that allows running older versions of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. The world can then be imported from the minecraftWorlds folder to the older version, where you can load it from there.

Android

Older versions of Minecraft on Android/Minecraft: Pocket Edition can be downloaded and installed via the Aurora Store. You can obtain the version codes from the Omniarchive Index (work in progress). Alternatively, you can simply just download the APK file for the version you want to install, such as from MCPEAlpha and load the world from that version.

iOS

To downgrade a world in iOS, sideload the version of Bedrock Edition you want to downgrade to. This is not recommended due to security risks.

Benefits and consequences

Benefits

Obtain old items that used to be craftable, but are now uncraftable, such as enchanted golden apples before 1.9 and petrified oak slabs before 1.3.1.
Obtain "god armor", a maxed out armor set which has all types of Protection; only obtainable from 1.14 to 1.14.2.
Execute duplication glitches that are patched in the latest versions, but continue to work in older versions.
Be able to see old terrain glitches such as the Far Lands.

Consequences

Any blocks, items, entities, enchantments, effects, particles, sounds, biomes, banner patterns and advancements that don't exist in the downgraded version are removed from the world.
Causes the world to be corrupted, wipe data of chunks and/or the player's inventory, and potentially crash.
Can cause selected chunks in the world to have strange rigid borders.
Chunks that were unloaded in the original version update.
Downgrading too far may cause the world's seed in level.dat to be 0, something which is normally impossible, but causes every other downgraded world to look identical.
Biomes can significantly change, usually when a biome doesn't exist in the downgraded version it is replaced by the plains biome.
Even upgrading back to the original version will not revert the damage.
Non-existent blocks are replaced with a dirt block with a question mark or one that says "update!".‌^{[BE only]}
The game will remove any blocks placed by the player (and insta-crash) if it is downgraded to 1.13.x.
Spawn will also change unless a player has interacted with a bed, because spawn chunks are always loaded even if you're very far away. Areas with running chunk loaders will be affected. This means that farms/buildings that are constructed in these areas will be wiped.

Gallery

An example of a chunk error due to downgrading.
Before 1.14.3, players can put multiple types of Protection on one armor piece, thereby reducing 80% of all damage types, something which was impossible before.
Able to see features only present in older versions of the game. Seen are the Far Lands, a terrain generation glitch that only existed from Infdev until Beta 1.7.3.
A mangrove swamp brought from 1.19.2 to 1.18.1. Note the total absence of mangrove logs, mangrove leaves and mangrove roots, features that didn't exist yet on these versions.