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NBTExplorer is a low-level graphical NBT data editor originally based on NBTedit. The key difference is NBTExplorer's full support for Minecraft .mcr/.mca region files, a directory-tree interface for easily exploring multiple worlds, and support for the latest NBT standard. NBTExplorer is built on top of Substrate.

NBTExplorer can read:

• Standard NBT files (e.g. level.dat)
• Schematic files
• Uncompressed NBT files (e.g. idcounts.dat)
• Minecraft region files (*.mcr)
• Minecraft anvil files (*.mca)
• Cubic Chunks region files

The NBTExplorer zip and installer packages for Windows now include a second utility, NBTUtil.exe, for command-line control of NBT data. NBTUtil currently has a limited featureset compared to NBTExplorer.



Windows Users
NBTExplorer is a Windows .NET application, and requires .NET framework 2.0 or higher to run. Note: If you run Windows 8 or later, you may get a SmartScreen warning when first running the program. See the related FAQ entry for more information.

Linux Users
NBTExplorer has been tested for compatibility with recent Mono runtimes. Minimally, your system needs the mono-core and mono-winforms packages, or whatever set of packages is equivalent.



Mac Users
A Mac-specific version of NBTExplorer is available with a native UX. It is compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 or higher. It will not run on 10.6, sorry.

As of August 22, 2013, I've begun signing NBTExplorer with an Apple Developer ID certificate. If you have GateKeeper configured to only allow software from the App Store, then you will need to change GateKeeper to allow running signed downloaded applications, or following these instructions to bypass GateKeeper:

If you have problems with the native client or you're running OS X 10.6 or older, you can still run the Windows version of NBTExplorer on your Mac by following the Linux instructions and installing the Mono runtime. You may still need to disable GateKeeper quarantine on the downloaded files.

Download: Windows / Linux (Version 2.8.0) [MSI installer or ZIP archive]
Download: Mac (Version 2.0.3)

Project Page: Github

I recommend backing up worlds before modifying them with this tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: NBTExplorer didn't save my changes -- why?

A: It's possible you forgot to save. The more likely answer is NBTExplorer did save your changes, and if you were to immediately re-open your world in NBTExplorer, you would see that your changes are still there. Instead, Minecraft erased or ignored your changes when you loaded your world. The most common trap is editing player settings or inventory on a single-player world and making your changes in a .dat file instead of in level.dat. Minecraft will overwrite your .dat file on load with the contents of the player tag in level.dat.

Q: I'm on Windows and NBTExplorer crashed on start / didn't run.

A: Did you get a message box listing one or more exceptions? Reply to this thread with the information so you can be better helped.

If you didn't get any message box though, or you only received a standard "program has stopped working" message box, then you have deeper issues with your .NET environment. Do any other .NET programs run on your computer? If yes, then try deleting the NBTExplorer.exe.config file that was installed / came with the zip. This will cause NBTExplorer to prefer the .NET 2.x/3.x framework over the 4.x framework, and may allow the program to run if your .NET 4.x framework is toast. You should still do something about that, of course.

Q: I'm on Windows and NBTExplorer crashed with a scary warning.

A: Windows 8 and later includes a program filter called "SmartScreen" that prevents unrecognized software from running. Its warning looks something like this:



If you see this screen, press the "More info" link to get a "Run Anyway" button. This will launch the program, and you shouldn't see the warning again unless you update NBTExplorer.

NBTExplorer is SAFE and has an established reputation in the Minecraft community. However, you don't need to take my word at face-value. The source code is publicly available for inspection, and you can download and build your own copy if you so wish.

SmartScreen builds up reputation on individual files. So you may see this warning if you download a freshly released update of NBTExplorer, but not if you download a version that has been out for a while. Unfortunately the permanent fix for this is to buy very expensive signing certificates that must be renewed annually, which is not viable for a free tool like this.

Q: The Mac version doesn't run on my Mac!

A: If you're running OSX 10.6.x or earlier, the Mac version is confirmed to not work. It has been tested and confirmed to work for people on 10.7.x and 10.8.x, although that may still not be a guarantee that it will work for you, or that it will be bug-free.

If you're having problems running the Mac-specific version of NBTExplorer, there is still a high probability that you can run the Windows/Linux version instead. thhinds has posted a more detailed set of instructions here. It won't be as pretty -- you'll get a very crude looking version of Windows UI styling instead of native OSX styling, but it should still do the job. I can't do anything about this unless an experienced Cocoa developer that also has some .NET/Mono experience is willing to step up and help me determine why it won't run on older versions of OSX.

Q: When I run the Mac version, I see: OSStatus error -67053

A: It has been reported that this is caused by Gatekeeper disallowing NBTExplorer from running because it is not a properly signed application. Please refer to the instructions in the "Mac Users" section above for bypassing GateKeeper's check. NOTE: As of August 22, 2013, I have begun signing NBTExplorer. Try downloading the latest version first.

NBTExplorer has been updated. Rough changeset:

- Project retargeted to .NET Framework 2.0
- General usability improvements
- - Open folder dialog remembers your last position
- - Files and folders can be dragged into the window to open them
- - Files and folders can be dragged onto the executable to open them at launch
- Improved Mono support, tested to run under both Linux and MacOS X (as always, YMMV)

Nice job with this. <3

No, that requires a mod. If you're looking to physically remove all snow blocks, a block replacement tool can do that for you. There's several around.

NBTedit is still a good tool for most people, and even that's pretty low level for the average player. Chunk editing is a niche requirement and most useful to developers. That's okay.

Quote from FentonAlpha

Can anyone tell me (if even possible) what i would need to edit in my level.dat with this program in order to make this appear as a fresh start world even though structures and features have spawned in it?

The purpose is to use an existing World with the "Tale of Kingdoms" mod. I have moved my spawn point to where i want the Mods building to spawn, but the mod will only spawn them on new worlds. So to sum up... how can i make my old world new without deleting all the progress i made on it? Is that even possible?

That largely depends on how the mod determines new-world state. If it goes off of an attribute like TerrainGenerated (which is used by Minecraft to determine when to populate chunks with trees, ores, etc.), then you could reset that flag, although it may have negative effects on your chunks. If it hooks into the routines that actually create chunks, then you'd need to delete the chunks where you'd like it to spawn. If it somehow hooks into the code that first creates a world, then I'm not sure there's anything you could do.

Quote from mandog15

Cool

I have a question, I have a diamond sword on a world in minecraft, I want to edit it to have enchantments, how?

You can add the necessary tags to your items to give them enchantments. Check http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Alpha_Level_Format/Chunk_File_Format#Items for the exact tag hierarchy needed -- enchantments are rooted in the "ench" compound tag. If you have enchantments on any of your items already, then you can look at those in NBTExplorer and use them as a guide. If you look around the tools forum, there are also tools specifically to edit enchantments that are probably easier to use.

NBTExplorer has been updated for Anvil map support. The set of NBT tags was expanded in anvil to include int arrays, which are now used in the .mca region files.

NBTExplorer has been updated, adding a (read-only) hex editor for viewing the contents of byte array and int array tags. I'll extend this for read-write support later, but for now it was just critical I be able to read the data to verify the changes I'm making to Substrate.

Is this something with widespread adoption?

Unfortunately it's something I would need to add support for in Substrate and that would require a bit of work. I may look into it when I near the end of a proper Anvil rewrite but it's still a ways off.

Holy cow... why did I never see this before...

Kudos to you good sir you deserve a full set of diamonds





hehe, had to completed that with the sword and stuff... anyways:

now down to business... where does minecraft load and save these files? im working on a mod to use them schematic files and stuff... but i need some help on exactly how a byte-array becomes a list of Blocks and their coordinates etc. I got the tag structure and stuff worked out already, just the Blocks, Entities, you know, the complicated stuff.

NBTExplorer is just a raw NBT presenter. What you really want is to browse through the source code of the underlying library, Substrate https://github.com/jaquadro/Substrate/tree/AnvilOnly (link is to Anvil-compat branch), which has constructs for everything that builds on top of NBT. The way I work with the data in Substrate is not necessarily the way you'll want to work with it in a mod (I'm currently abstracting Anvil chunks into Beta-style chunks, which closely mirrors .schematic file data, but also complicates things), but you should be able to see how to interpret the data.

Quote from jaquadro

NBTExplorer is just a raw NBT presenter. What you really want is to browse through the source code of the underlying library, Substrate https://github.com/j.../tree/AnvilOnly (link is to Anvil-compat branch), which has constructs for everything that builds on top of NBT. The way I work with the data in Substrate is not necessarily the way you'll want to work with it in a mod (I'm currently abstracting Anvil chunks into Beta-style chunks, which closely mirrors .schematic file data, but also complicates things), but you should be able to see how to interpret the data.

thanks so much. good thing c# is alot like java
Also, I found this... http://jnbt.sourceforge.net/ its a java library for reading this stuff.. has an NBT InputStream that takes care of everything. Then it puts the tags in a map with the name as key. helps a lot when learning how they work.