How to Use the Allowlist and Add Operators

The Players page answers three questions in one place: who plays here, who is allowed in, and who can use commands. On Bedrock those used to live in two separate JSON files that were easy to get wrong. Now they are one list.

1Open the Players Page

• Log in to your game panel and click your Bedrock server.
• Click Players in the left menu under GAME SERVER.
• Everyone who has ever joined is listed, with a count of who is online right now at the top.

2Turn On the Allowlist

• The Allowlist switch at the top closes the server: only players on the list below can join.
• This is Bedrock's version of a whitelist. Turn it on before you hand the address to anyone, not after, or you will spend the first evening removing people you did not invite.
• The same switch appears as Allowlist only in Game Settings. It is one setting shown in two places, so changing either one changes both.

3Add Someone

• Type their gamertag into the box and press Add.
• It has to be the exact gamertag. A typo is added as a perfectly valid entry that simply never matches anyone, so ask them to send it to you rather than spell it out over voice chat.
• You do not need their player ID. The server fills that in the first time they join.
• Anyone who has already played is in the list, so you can add them from there instead of typing.

4Make Someone an Operator

Permission levels decide who can use commands.

• Visitor can look but not build.
• Member is the normal player, and the default for everyone who joins.
• Operator can use commands such as /give, /gamemode and /tp.

Two things trip people up here, and it is nearly always one of them.

• Allow cheats must be on. It is in Game Settings under World. With it off, an operator has the rank and none of the commands.
• They have to join once first. Permission levels are matched on the player ID, which the server only learns when someone connects. Add them, let them log in, then set the level.

Good to Know

• Getting rid of someone right now takes a kick as well. Removing an entry stops them coming back, and kick <gamertag> from the Console page ends the session they are already in.
• The default level is a setting. Default permission level in Game Settings is what a new player gets. Leave it on Member. On Operator, every stranger who joins can use commands.
• Operator is not the same as being on the allowlist. They are two separate columns. Someone can be an operator and still be refused entry if they are not allowed in.
• A player who changes their gamertag is a new entry. The old one no longer matches. Add the new tag and delete the old one.

Finished

Your server is closed to strangers and your staff can moderate it. If somebody you added still cannot get on, work through players cannot connect.