How to change the difficulty on a Minecraft server

Minecraft has four difficulty levels: Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. You can change the difficulty with a command or in server.properties.

Change difficulty with a command

Run one of these commands in the server console:

difficulty peaceful
difficulty easy
difficulty normal
difficulty hard

In-game, add / before the command. You must have operator permissions:

/difficulty hard

The change takes effect immediately.

Change difficulty in server.properties

1. Stop the server.
2. Open server.properties in the file manager.
3. Find difficulty= and set it to peaceful, easy, normal, or hard.
4. Save the file and restart the server.

For example:

difficulty=normal

If the difficulty keeps changing

A plugin, mod, command block, or world-management tool may override the setting. Check your server console and plugin configuration if the selected difficulty does not remain active.