How to Install Add-ons on Your Bedrock Server

Add-ons are Bedrock's answer to mods. A behaviour pack changes how the game behaves, a resource pack changes how it looks and sounds, and the two are usually shipped together. Installing them on a server used to mean unzipping files and hand editing two JSON files without a single typo. The Add-ons page does that part for you.

1Find an Add-on

• MCPEDL and the Minecraft Marketplace are where most people start. Anything sold as an add-on for Bedrock works on a server.
• You want a .mcaddon or a .mcpack file. A .mcaddon usually holds a behaviour pack and a resource pack together, and both get installed.
• If a download hands you a .zip, look for the real file inside it. A zip full of folders is not something the page can read.

2Install It

• Log in to your game panel and click your Bedrock server.
• Click Add-ons in the left menu under GAME SERVER.
• Press Choose an add-on file and pick your download.
• The panel reads the pack, works out what it is, and switches it on for your active world. There is no JSON to edit and no UUID to copy.

3Restart and Check

• Restart from the Console page. Packs are loaded when the world loads.
• Join and look for the thing the add-on adds. If it is a behaviour pack, that means new mobs, items or recipes. If it is a resource pack, players are asked to download it as they connect.

4Make Resource Packs Compulsory

• By default a player who declines your resource pack still gets in, and sees the game without it.
• Turn on Require resource packs in Game Settings and they have to accept it to join.
• Do this if the pack is the point of the server. Leave it off if the pack is decoration, because a large pack on a slow connection is a real barrier.

Good to Know

• Packs are switched on per world. The page tells you which world it is enabling them for. Change the active world on the Worlds page and your packs do not follow it.
• Minecraft's own built in packs are not listed. The vanilla packs that ship with the game are always available and do not need installing, so the list only shows what you have added.
• Behaviour packs need a matching game version. An add-on built for an older Minecraft can break or silently do nothing. Check what the author supports before blaming the server.
• Order matters when packs collide. Two resource packs changing the same texture is settled by which one is applied last. If something looks wrong, the usual cause is two packs fighting.
• Add-ons are not plugins. They run inside the game and cannot do server side things like ranks, economies or land claims. For those you need PocketMine-MP or PowerNukkitX, covered in changing your server version.

Finished

Your server runs the packs you chose. If players report they cannot join after installing one, check they are on the same Minecraft version as the server and read players cannot connect.