Restore a Missing Minecraft World (Java Edition)

Even though it totally shouldn´t it sometime happens that Minecraft worlds in the Java Edition of the game all of a sudden disappear from the launcher. They are however usually not actually gone. Instead this indicates that the world file is somehow corrupt (broken).

Here I´m showcasing two of the most common ways of restoring a lost Minecraft world. Please write any questions down in the comments and I´ll do my best to help. Also not that this only applies to the Java Edition of the game (for Windows/macOS/Linux).

 
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[TomGoblin]

Thank you so much, my creative building world of 2 years with countless builds and memories has been saved by you. You have saved me from losing my mind.

[ForNoReasonAtAll]

Thank you so much bro you saved me from a heart attack

[jyotirmay]

man.. i can never thank you enough. you're a life saver. and also, surprisingly all the items in my chests etc. are intact and only the inventory got yeeted

[joshbrennan]

My PC crashed while saving and my world disappeared. I thought hundreds of hours were erased in an instant... such a gut wrenching feeling. Thank you SO MUCH for this fix! I am at peace

[kacuee]

Dude, you are a real life saver. I thought I was completely lost, but your video worked for me! Seriously, thank you so much!!

[crypticb_e_t_s]

At 3:55 when I go on my back up and stuff the level.dat isn’t there? What should I do? My hardcore world is just gone? But for every other one of my worlds there’s the level.dat option

[daggergaming]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I tried everything that I could to save my survival world, but nothing worked until I saw your video! Luckily my chests saved over (somehow), but I got the added bonus of going on new adventures again!

[andrewmeade]

Bro you are such a life saver! I was up all night last night working on a huge build in creative, and woke up this morning to that world being gone. I tried to get it back all day but failed. Untill I watched your vid! TYSM!!!

[sethofspades]

You have no idea how relieved I am after seeing this. This not only restored my world, it made it so that I was able to access it in the newest snapshot

[shroompie]

THANK YOU SO MUCH I JUST RECOVERED MY WORLD IM SO HAPPY :"З
The second optipn worked for me!! Incrediblly cool video thank you thank
Now im thinking how i can prevent this from happening again.. i lost my world to a power outage, and it might happen again :")

[collinregner]

Thank you so much!! Idk what exactly happened I guess I just turned it off while saving. I had to resort to the record option though :( but luckily I only had diamond armor I just got, so I didn’t lose a ton. I was finally getting back into Minecraft thanks for saving this world :)

[klodas]

THANKYOU SO MUCH THIS WORKED!! i was so sad when I realized my world had gone missing and this video had really helped. the same problem happened to my other friend and I shared it with him as well and it worked for him tool!! thanks

[fredlidstrom]

you are a hero, thanks for helping me

[shwetlimbachiya]

Thank you bro so much my 4.7 years survival world is now saved.Actually I was building a big storage system and don’t know why my pc stopped working and automatically shuted down. After it I lost my world. But now I have restored it only because of you, Thank you so much

[Diamond_Dominik]

This did indeed work! My lost world showed up on the list, but the problem is that when I want to play on it, the whole game stops responding, to the point where even Java(TM) Platform SE binary stops responding, and it asks you if you want to close the program or you want to wait for it to respond. This is happening while having the "Reading world data..." screen, is there a way to fix this?

[juntheroyalcat]

YOU JUST SAVED MY HARDCORE WORLD!! I was having a heart attack when I saw my world missing

[Kttixz]

I don't know why but I simply just don't have a saves folder... and there's absolutely no tutorials on what to do if this happens. Does anybody know what to do in this situations?

[GDominos]

I just lost my survival world and i cant backup it because sodium mod...

[kev_mit_alles]

Wherever you are, youre the best!!! you saved my two month old survival world that i put much time in. And the best thing: only the inventory is missing, all my chests are still full und everything ive built is still there YOU SAVED MY LIFE

[trinidadarquillano]

Omg thank youuu!!! I thought i actually lost my 600 day hardcore world! Your a life saver man you deserve more subs! Thats exactly why im gonna sub to you using my 6 alt accounts 😊 i know it's not exactly alot of subs but it'll help, and I will also make a statue of your honor on my hardcore world to forever honor the king that saved my world! 🎉