How To Get and Use The Minecraft World Border (Updated)

Hey everybody, it’s UnderMyCap and welcome back to another video! Today I’m going to be showing you how to use the Minecraft World Border command. Yes, I’ve covered this topic before, but I really wanted to answer some of your questions and outline every single feature. There are six of them in total, so we’re going to go through each one. Unfortunately, this only works on Java Edition and not Bedrock or MCPE, but by the end of this post you should know exactly how to use the World Border command with confidence!

If you’d prefer to watch the video version, you can check it out here: How To Get and Use The Minecraft World Border (Updated)

What Is the World Border?

The World Border is a boundary in Minecraft that stops players from leaving a defined area of the world. It’s a really useful tool for servers, mini-games, or any situation where you want to keep players within a certain space. Let me walk you through every command you need to know.

Setting the Center

The first command you’ll want to use is the center command. By typing /worldborder center ~ ~, you can center the World Border around your current position. When you first start a world, the border may not be visible because it defaults to an enormous size — something like six million blocks wide — so it won’t look like anything is there at first. Centering it is always a great starting point.

Setting the Size

The second command is used to set the distance of the World Border. You can do this by typing /worldborder set [value]. For example, if you type /worldborder set 50, the border will be set to 50 by 50 blocks wide. You can also set it to grow or shrink over a duration of time, which is a really cool feature. For example, typing /worldborder set 100 5 will gradually expand the border to 100 blocks over 5 seconds — the number at the end is always in seconds. When expanding, the border will appear green, and when shrinking it will appear red.

Getting the Current Size

If at any point you’re unsure how wide your World Border is, all you have to do is type /worldborder get and it will tell you the current size of your border. Simple and super handy!

Adding or Subtracting from the Border

The add command lets you add a positive or negative value to your current World Border size. For example, typing /worldborder add 10 will expand the border by 10 blocks, and typing /worldborder add -10 will shrink it by 10 blocks. Just like the set command, you can also do this over time — for example, /worldborder add 10 3 will add 10 blocks to the border over 3 seconds. If you ever want to completely remove the World Border, simply set it to an extremely large value and it will essentially disappear from view.

Damage Commands

Now let’s get into the more advanced features. Don’t worry — they look tricky at first, but once you get the hang of them they’re really easy to use! The damage command has two sub-commands: buffer and amount.

The buffer is the distance a player has to travel outside of the World Border before they start receiving damage. For example, if you set the buffer to 10 using /worldborder damage buffer 10, a player would need to be 10 blocks outside of the border before taking any damage. The amount sub-command sets how much damage is dealt per block per tick outside of the buffer. For example, setting the amount to 0.1 means a player will take 0.1 damage per block they are beyond the buffer zone — so the further out they go, the more damage they receive.

Warning Commands

The final command is the warning command, and it’s important to note that this only works when the World Border is in a moving state — that is, when it is actively expanding or shrinking. The warning command creates a red visual effect around the edges of a player’s screen to alert them that the border is getting close. There are two types of warnings: distance and time.

The distance warning triggers the red screen effect when the World Border is within a certain number of blocks of the player. For example, /worldborder warning distance 5 will cause the warning to appear when the border is within 5 blocks of the player. The time warning works similarly, but instead of measuring distance, it looks at whether the World Border will reach the player within a certain number of seconds. For example, typing /worldborder warning time 10 and then moving the border inward will trigger that red edge effect on the player’s screen as the border approaches.

Summary of World Border Commands

• /worldborder center ~ ~ — Centers the World Border at your position
• /worldborder set [size] — Sets the World Border to a specific size
• /worldborder set [size] [seconds] — Sets the border size over a duration of time
• /worldborder get — Displays the current World Border size
• /worldborder add [value] — Adds or subtracts from the current border size
• /worldborder add [value] [seconds] — Adds or subtracts over a duration of time
• /worldborder damage buffer [value] — Sets the distance outside the border before damage is applied
• /worldborder damage amount [value] — Sets the damage per block per tick outside the buffer
• /worldborder warning distance [value] — Sets the distance at which the red warning effect appears
• /worldborder warning time [seconds] — Sets the time-based threshold for the red warning effect

And that’s everything you need to know about the Minecraft World Border command! I hope this has been helpful and that you feel confident using all six features. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments — I absolutely love reading through them and helping out where I can. Thank you so much for reading and I can’t wait to see you in the next one!