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Minecraft MOTD generator.

Write your server's message of the day — the server description players see in the multiplayer list. Style it by selecting text, see exactly how it renders, and copy the snippet for your setup — no codes to learn.

Start from
3/20
the-hollow-4b.pixly.gg
Select text on the tile, then colour it. ⌘B bold · ⌘I italic · ⌘U underline · ↵ second line
Try it on your own world

See this exact listing — name, icon and MOTD — live on a real server in about a minute.

Your MOTD, ready to paste

Paste over the existing motd= line, then restart the server.

motd=\u00a76\u00a7lTHE HOLLOW\u00a7r \u00a77— season 4\n\u00a7eNew spawn is live.\u00a77 Come see it

MOTD examples to steal.

Out of ideas? Ready-made MOTD designs — every template loads straight into the editor above. Change the words, keep the shape.

Friendly SMP
Two lines, sixteen colours, safe everywhere.
Sunset gradient
Per-character hex. Needs Paper or a proxy.
Event countdown
Bold + colour, easy to swap weekly.
Quiet and small
Default gray only. Cheapest on characters.
Modpack server
Version front and centre — saves you questions.
With obfuscated
The scrambling block holds its width.

How to set your MOTD in server.properties.

Four steps, the same on any host that gives you the file.

  1. Style it above

    Write and style your MOTD in the editor — both lines, colors, symbols. The preview is what players will see.

  2. Copy the server.properties block

    It comes out escaped — § becomes \u00a7, plain ASCII that pastes safely no matter how your file is encoded.

  3. Paste over the motd= line

    Open server.properties and replace everything after motd=. Keep the value on one line — a second MOTD line travels as \n, never as a real Enter.

  4. Restart and check

    The server only reads the file while booting. Restart it, then refresh your multiplayer list.

A finished motd= line looks like this:
motd=§bThe Hollow §7S4\n§eFresh wipe Friday §c❤

No file access? Most hosting panels put this in an MOTD settings field instead — paste the Raw § string there. On Pixly it lives in your world settings, and the Try it card above starts a world with your MOTD already set.

MOTD on Bedrock and crossplay servers

Through Geyser, Bedrock players only see your Java MOTD when passthrough-motd is on — otherwise they get the two lines from Geyser's own config. Bedrock also renders less: the 16 colors and bold work, hex doesn't, and §m and §n are colors there rather than strikethrough and underline. One hard rule: no semicolons — Bedrock's ping format treats ; as a separator, and everything after one can vanish. The preview up top flags all of this as you type, and the Java + Bedrock crossplay hosting page covers the server side.

Setting up the server itself too? The how to host a Minecraft server guide walks the whole path, and the pay-per-hour Minecraft server hosting page shows what running one costs.

Minecraft MOTD color codes.

All 16 legacy codes with their hex values, the formatting codes that ride along, and where hex and gradients actually render.

The 16 color codes

Black§0#000000
Dark blue§1#0000AA
Dark green§2#00AA00
Dark aqua§3#00AAAA
Dark red§4#AA0000
Dark purple§5#AA00AA
Gold§6#FFAA00
Gray§7#AAAAAA
Dark gray§8#555555
Blue§9#5555FF
Green§a#55FF55
Aqua§b#55FFFF
Red§c#FF5555
Light purple§d#FF55FF
Yellow§e#FFFF55
White§f#FFFFFF
Unstyled MOTD text is #808080 gray — not white, and not §7.

Formatting codes

§lBoldWorks everywhere
§oItalicWorks everywhere
§nUnderlineJava only — Bedrock ignores it
§mStrikethroughJava only — Bedrock ignores it
§kObfuscatedCharacters randomize constantly, keeping their width
§rResetBack to plain gray, all styles off
\nSecond lineTwo characters in server.properties, not a real newline
A color code cancels any bold, italic, underline, strike or obfuscated already running — which is why hand-writing these is fiddly. The editor above re-emits them for you.

Hex colors and gradients

Give the picker any hex value and the editor emits the §x chain, escaped for server.properties. Paper reads §x in the MOTD and proxies take hex through MiniMessage; unmodded servers and the Fabric/Forge loaders show the classic 16 instead, and the copy step can fold custom shades back to that palette for them. Bedrock never renders hex. Gradients ride the same mechanics — two end colors, blended across the line.

MOTD symbols, unicode and emojis.

These 51 special characters come straight from the game's own pixel font — the one players call Mojangles — so they render in every server list, and the preview above measures them at their true pixel width. Each takes color and styling like any letter. Click them in the editor's symbol picker, or copy them from here.

Stars & sparks
★☆☄⁂⚡
Hearts & suits
❤♥♠♣♦
Arrows
→←↑↓↔»«›‹
Music
♪♫♩♬
Weather
☀☁☂☃❄
Shapes
●○■□◆◇▲▼▶◀•·
More
☺☻☹☠⚔⚑✔†‡∞±

Emojis are the catch. The server list draws text glyphs only, always monochrome — a colored emoji never renders. Symbols from the base Unicode plane mostly work, because the game falls back to Unifont for glyphs its own font lacks; anything beyond U+FFFF — where nearly all modern emoji live — shows as the hollow box. So ⭐ renders and 🌟 doesn't. When in doubt, paste the character into the preview: it draws exactly what the game will.

What's built in.

Start from a template, paste the MOTD you already have, or type fresh — the editor above does all of this as you work.

Game-accurate live preview

You type straight onto a replica of the multiplayer server list — name, icon and MOTD together — while meters track each line's rendered pixel width and mark the exact cutoff.

Hex colors beyond the 16

The color picker takes any hex shade, not just the classic codes. The editor writes the §x color chain for you and shows where it will and won't render.

Two-color gradients

Pick two ends and the gradient tool blends them across the line one character at a time, with presets like Sunset and Deep sea to start from.

51 in-game symbols

The symbol picker carries 51 glyphs the game's font actually draws — stars, hearts, arrows, music notes, shapes — and each takes color and styling like any letter.

Five copy-paste formats

One click copies your MOTD escaped for server.properties (§ becomes \u00a7) — plus a raw § string, & codes for BungeeCord and Velocity, MiniMessage for Paper, and a JSON text component.

Java and Bedrock aware

Java-only styles are labeled, the semicolon that corrupts Bedrock pings is caught as you type, and custom colors can fold down to the nearest built-in 16 for vanilla, Fabric and Forge.

Three things worth knowing.

The MOTD is small, and the rules around it are unusual. These are the ones that trip people up.

01
It's your shop sign

The MOTD is the two short lines under your server's name in every player's multiplayer list. For most people it's the only thing they read before deciding whether to click Join.

02
Measured in pixels, not letters

The game truncates by rendered width, and its font is variable-width. Two lines of the same character count can fit very differently — the meters above measure the real thing.

03
Styling takes no space

Formatting codes take no visible width, so styling never makes your text longer on screen. It does make the stored string longer, which matters when your host caps it.

MOTD questions,
answered plainly.

Built by Pixly because we got tired of guessing too.

Press Enter while writing and copy the result. In server.properties the break is the two literal characters \n — a real line break in the file will not work. Two lines is the hard maximum; anything after them is dropped.

The game cuts each line by rendered pixel width — roughly 270 pixels, which lands near 59 average characters. Wide letters like W and M eat the budget faster than i or l, so character counting misleads you. The meters under the preview show the real number, and the dashed rule marks the exact cut.

Gray (#808080) is the default color for unstyled MOTD text. The white line above it is the server name the player typed when they added you, which you cannot control. If you want white MOTD text, color it white explicitly.

On Java, a color code clears every active style. So §cX§lY is bold but §lX§cY is not. The editor handles this invisibly — it re-emits the style codes after every color change, so what you see is what you get.

Yes — the color picker here takes any hex shade, and the gradient tool spreads two colors across a line one character at a time. Whether players see them depends on the server software: Paper, Spigot, Purpur and proxies read §x color chains; vanilla, Fabric and Forge silently fall back, and Bedrock never renders them. The preview flags this live, and the copy step can fold custom colors down to the nearest built-in 16 for you.

No. server.properties reads legacy § codes, plus §x hex chains on Paper. MiniMessage tags like <gradient> only render where an Adventure-aware layer parses them — a Velocity proxy's motd, or MOTD plugins like MiniMOTD. That's what the MiniMessage copy block here is for; on a plain server, use the server.properties block.

Mostly. Bedrock gets the 16 colors and bold, but not underline or strikethrough, and no hex. One hard rule: never put a semicolon in an MOTD that Bedrock players will see — it corrupts the response and can swallow everything after it. The editor warns you.

Yes for server.properties — the file is read at startup, so the new MOTD appears after the next restart. On Pixly, saving in your world settings applies it on the next start, and it also shows while your world is asleep between sessions.

Restart first — edits to server.properties never apply to a running server. If the list shows § garbage, the file was saved in the wrong encoding; paste the escaped output from this page instead, which is plain ASCII and survives any encoding. Type a second line as \n, never a real Enter — a raw line break ends the property early. And on crossplay servers, check for a semicolon: Bedrock's ping treats ; as a separator and drops what follows.

Symbols yes — the toolbar's picker carries 51 special characters the game's font actually draws, from arrows to stars. Wider unicode is a gamble: glyphs the font lacks render as hollow boxes. Color emojis never work — the server list draws text glyphs only, so an emoji falls back to a plain outline at best.

Most MOTD maker and creator tools have you assemble § codes by hand and preview the result somewhere else. Here the preview is the editor: you type on a game-accurate tile, style the selection, and the codes are emitted for you — already escaped for server.properties. Hex colors, gradients and the symbol picker are built in, and the output also copies as a raw § string, & codes, MiniMessage or a JSON text component.