How to Reset or Reload Chunks in Minecraft (2023)

Get those chunks working as good as new!

Minecraft’s world is made entirely of chunks, stretching in all directions as far as your eyes can see (or your render distance setting can allow). Therefore, it would stand to reason that these chunks can sometimes become bugged and not load properly for your game. You may even want these chunks cleared of all player-made modifications and reverted to their original state. Regardless of your needs, this guide will give you a comprehensive look at how to reload chunks in Minecraft or even have them reset entirely. While you are here, also check out Minecraft Building Ideas.

Key Highlights
  • Minecraft is a game where the world is represented by blocks, which all load in chunks the more you explore.
  • Sometimes these chunks may not load properly, which is why you would reset or reload chunks to counter this issue.
  • If you’re on Java edition, one way to reload chunks is by pressing the F3 + A keys together.
  • If you want to reset your chunks, however, that completely changes the chunks around you but removes any player-made changes in that area.
  • You can reset chunks by using the MCA Selector software. You can see the procedure in the guide below. (For Java Edition)
  • For resetting the chunks in the Bedrock edition, you can by using the software: Amulet Editor. The procedure is below in our guide.

What are Chunks in Minecraft?

Chunks are clusters of blocks that act as the basis for your Minecraft world. They take up a space of 16 by 16 blocks horizontally and 256 blocks vertically. This gives them a total size of 65,536 blocks.

a chunk in minecraft
A single chunk in Minecraft

Chunks are loaded every time you boot up your Minecraft world. Moreover, depending on your render distance, only the chunks in a certain vicinity are loaded at any given time. Additional chunks are loaded in as your player traverses the world.

Are you interested in expanding your traversal skills through the world of Minecraft? Check out this guide on crawling through tight spaces.

How to Reload Chunks in Minecraft

The game dynamically renders and de-renders chunks throughout your playtime. It is, therefore, possible for one or a few of the chunks to become glitched. This means that they do not load in properly, or are not displayed properly at your end. In such a situation, you may have to reload or ‘refresh’ the chunks in your Minecraft world, and force them to be rendered again.

Thankfully, a simple keyboard shortcut on the Minecraft Java edition can get this done. Hold down the F3 key, and press A. You will now see your Minecraft world being reloaded in chunks around you.

chunks being reloaded
Chunks being reloaded in your world

This may take a few seconds depending on your system’s specifications, but once it’s done, any glitches or errors you may have had in the chunk rendering previously should be rectified.

The aforementioned method is useful for reloading chunks in a single-player and on any online server. However, if you’re on the Minecraft Bedrock edition, you won’t be able to use this shortcut. Your best bet will be to exit and re-enter the world or rejoin the server.

Other useful shortcuts

Some other keyboard shortcuts may prove useful for your adventures in Minecraft Java. Listed below are the shortcuts and their functions:

F3open Debug screen
Hold Shift and press F3open Debug screen with profiler graph
Hold Alt and press F3open Debug screen with frame-time graph
Hold F3 and press Sreload all client resources loaded from the web
Hold F3 and press Treload all textures
Hold F3 and press Dclear chat history
Hold F3 and press Fincrease render distance
Hold Shift and press F3 + Fdecrease render distance
Hold F3 and press Ptoggle auto-pause when another window is focused
Hold F3 and press Htoggle detailed item descriptions
Hold F3 and press Btoggle hitboxes for mobs
Hold F3 and press Gtoggle chunk borders in the world
Hold F3 and press Nswitch between Spectator and Creative game modes
Hold F3 and press Icopy block or entity data to clipboard
Hold F3 and press Escpause game without opening pause menu

To increase your chances of survival in the world of Minecraft, you may want to brush up on some essential skills. Read our guides on getting leather and repairing a bow.

How to Reset Chunks in Minecraft

Sometimes you may want to have certain parts of your Minecraft world completely reset so you can start afresh. This can be desirable if your world has become too big and laggy, or if the file size has become too much for your system storage. Otherwise, maybe there’s a new update on the way, and you simply want those beautiful new biomes closer to your house. In a situation such as this, your best bet is to reset some chunks in your Minecraft world completely.

Do note that unlike reloading chunks, which only load up the same chunk from memory, resetting chunks in Minecraft will completely clear any player-made modifications within those chunks. Then, once you load up the world again, chunks will be reverted to their original state. This also means that resetting chunks where no modifications were made will not have any effect. It is also important to make a backup of your world folder before making any changes in it, since the changes are irreversible.

Chunks can be reset in both Minecraft Java and Bedrock versions, including Pocket Edition. However, you will need a computer since this method requires the use of third-party software.

Minecraft Java

Installing the software

We will first install the software that we need to use for resetting chunks in Minecraft Java. This software is the MCA Selector. To download this, go to this site. Scroll down to the Download and installation section, download the latest version and install it.

mca selector download
Download page for MCA Selector

Making a backup

Your next task will be to safely create a backup of your game world. This is especially important here because MCA Selector will delete chunks from your Minecraft world in real-time, so any mistakes cannot be reverted easily.

  1. First, open up your start menu and type %appdata% in the search bar to find your game world folder.
    Finding appdata folder
    Looking up your AppData folder
  2. Then go to the .minecraft folder and open saves.
    finding minecraft world folder
    Finding your Minecraft world folder
  3. After that, find the folder with your world name, copy it and store it in some other location. Now you have a backup, and if you accidentally mess up while resetting your Minecraft chunks, you can copy this folder back and overwrite your edited world folder.

Opening the world in the software

  1. Now start up MCA Selector. Here, you will see a black screen with a grid. To load in your Minecraft world so that we can reset the chunks, click on File and then on Open Region.
loading world to reset chunks in Minecraft
Selecting Open Region from the Files menu
  1. Navigate to the path Drive C > Users > [user name] > AppData > Roaming > .minecraft > saves > [world name].
  2. Note: If the AppData folder is not visible, you may have to enable your settings to view hidden files and folders.
  3. The next step is to open the folder corresponding to the Minecraft world you want to edit.
  • Main game: open region.
  • The Nether: open DIM-1.
  • The End: open DIM1.
finding the right world to reset reload chunks in minecraft
Finding the right world folder to open

You should now see the world start to load in. It will take some time for it to load in entirely, but you can start working while it continues to load the outer regions.

Selecting chunks to reset

The smaller grids you see will represent the individual chunks in your Minecraft world. From this screen, you can select those that you want to reset. These selected chunks become highlighted as orange.

selecting chunks to reset reload in minecraft
Selecting the chunks you want to reset

If you zoom out enough, you should a larger grid, where you can select blocks to reset larger spaces of your Minecraft world.

If you want to select which areas to keep instead of which areas to reset, you can simply select the areas that you want to stay unaltered in your world, and then go to Selection and select Invert. Doing so will unselect the chunks you want to preserve, and select all other chunks that need to be reset.

inverting selection for chunks to be reloaded
Inverting selection in MCA Selector
inverted chunks being selected to be reset reloaded minecraft
Inverted chunks being selected

You can also select the chunks based on the time you’ve spent playing in them by going to Tools, selecting Filter chunks and using the Inhabited time filter.

filtering chunks in minecraft
Using the Inhabited Time filter for selecting chunks

Resetting the chunks

Once you’ve selected the parts you want to delete, simply go to Selection and click on Delete selected chunks.

clicking on delete chunks to reset reload minecraft
Deleting the selected chunks
chunks deleted reset reloaded minecraft
Selected chunks deleted

The deleted areas will now become black or grey, and the chunks will be reloaded to their original state when you open your Minecraft world again. Note that there is no need to save the file, since this tool edits your world in real-time.

Minecraft Bedrock (including Pocket Edition)

Installing the software

For the Minecraft Bedrock edition, we will use a tool called the Amulet Editor. This software can be downloaded here. Once downloaded, follow the installation process.

download amulet editor
Downloading Amulet Editor

Finding coordinates of chunks to be reset

To use this tool, you first need to know the rough coordinates of the chunks that you want to reset in your Minecraft world. For this, open your world in-game and turn on the Show Coordinates option in the game settings screen.

show coordinates settings in minecraft
Enabling the Show Coordinates setting

Now go to the place you want to reset and note down the coordinates.

noting coordinates of chunks to be reset reloaded minecraft
Checking coordinates of area to be reset

Finding the game world folder

Another thing you need to do in-game is to memorize the world icon for the Minecraft world that you want to edit. This will help you in finding your game world folder.

checking world icon where chunks to be reset reloaded minecraft

To find the game world folder in Minecraft Pocket Edition, go to your phone’s File Manager and open its internal storage or SD card, depending on where you’ve installed your game. Open the games folder and then open the com.mojang folder. Some phones may have the minecraft folder instead of this. Afterwards, open the minecraftWorlds folder.

Opening Minecraft worlds folder for chunk reset or reload
Open the minecraftWorlds folder

To get to the same folder in Minecraft Bedrock edition on PC, open your start menu and search for %USERPROFILE%. Now follow the path AppData > Local > Packages > Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe > LocalState > games > com.mojang > minecraftWorlds.

Here, you will find multiple folders with random alpha-numeric names. These are the folders for your worlds in Minecraft.

List of game world folders
List of game world folders

To find which world folder belongs to the world that you want to edit, open each folder and check the image named world_icon.jpeg. See which folder contains the image that matches the world icon you previously memorized for your world.

Checking world icon for chunk reset reload
Checking the world icon to find the correct world folder

Once you’ve found the correct folder, copy it to another location on your PC. If this folder is on your mobile, you will have to transfer it to your PC through online platforms such as Google Drive or through a USB cable.

Opening the world in the software

Now open up the Amulet Editor by going to the installation folder and clicking on amulet_app.exe.

opening amulet editor
Opening the Amulet Editor

This will open up a command prompt window as well as a small program window for the Amulet Editor. On this window, click on Open World, and select Open other world.

opening minecraft world to reload reset chunk
Selecting the Open World option
opening minecraft world for chunk reload reset
Selecting the Open other world option

Now navigate to the location where you saved your game folder, and open it. Your world map should now begin to load in the program. You can move around the map freely as it does use the mouse or the WASD keys.

Selecting chunks to reset

Click on the button in the top right bar that shows your coordinates, and enter the in-game coordinates where you want to reset the chunks. You can shift your view by clicking on the 2D/3D button next to it.

clicking on coordinates buttom
Clicking on the coordinates button
Coordinates of chunk to be reloaded or reset Minecraft
Entering the coordinates of the area to reset

Once this world has loaded, click on the Chunk button in the bottom bar. You can now start selecting the chunks that you want to reset in your Minecraft world by clicking or holding the left mouse button. The selected chunks become highlighted in white.

Selecting chunk option in the map view
Selecting the Chunk option in the bottom row
Selecting chunks to be reload reset Minecraft
Select the chunks to delete

Resetting the chunks

You can now delete the selected chunks by clicking on Delete Chunks. When you reopen the game afterwards, these chunks will get reset to their original state.

Resetting reloading selected chunks Minecraft
Deleting the selected chunks

Once you have deleted all the chunks that you wanted to reset, select File and click on Save. Doing so will save the changes to the world folder that you opened.

Saving changes in Minecraft world
Saving your changes

All you need to do now is to copy the game folder back into the game directory where you copied it from.

You have now successfully reset your chunks from your Minecraft world, and will see them as good as new when you reopen your game!

This concludes our guide on reloading and resetting your Minecraft world chunks. Let us know if these steps were able to solve your chunk-related issues! To further level up your Minecraft game, look at our guides on the Minecraft Infinity Enchantment and how to tame a parrot in Minecraft.

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Sulaymaan Ahmad


A prospective engineer with a long-standing love for competitive multiplayer shooters and narrative-driven experiences. When not sharing his meme-filled thoughts on Facebook, he can be found rocking Buck or Smoke in Rainbow Six Siege.

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