Tools
Minecraft color codes
Every Minecraft text colour and style in each format the game and plugins understand: & and §, MiniMessage, HEX and JSON. Click a code to copy it. Below is a converter for any colour.
Color codes
- Black
- Dark blue
- Dark green
- Dark aqua
- Dark red
- Dark purple
- Gold
- Gray
- Dark gray
- Blue
- Green
- Aqua
- Red
- Light purple
- Yellow
- White
- Obfuscated
- Bold
- Strikethrough
- Underlined
- Italic
- Reset
Click a code to copy it.
Your own colour
A colour as a number, the way NBT and item components store it — dyed leather armour and potions, for example.
<#ff8800>&#ff8800&x&f&f&8&8&0&0"color":"#ff8800"16746496How colours are written in Minecraft
The classic codes are § plus one character: §a is green, §l is bold. That's how colours appear in server.properties and the MOTD; plugins usually accept & instead, since it's easier to type. A colour code clears the styles before it, so put the style after the colour: &a&l.
Sixteen colours are all the old formats know. Any HEX colour works in JSON text since 1.16 ("color":"#ff8800"), in MiniMessage (<#ff8800>) and in plugin formats: &#ff8800 or Spigot's &x&f&f&8&8&0&0. If a plugin can't do HEX, use the nearest of the 16 — the converter shows it.
MiniMessage is the format of Paper and many plugins: tags like <red>, <bold>, <gradient>. Build a gradient in the gradient text generator and a MOTD in the MOTD editor.
Colour matters in a ban message too: the player should understand what they were punished for. DGuard punishes precisely — on evidence gathered across combat, movement, packets, inventory and building at once.
Read in the knowledge base
FAQ
How do I type in colour in Minecraft chat?
Players can't use colours in plain chat: the codes work in the MOTD, on signs, in commands and in chat plugins that allow them. In plugins you usually type & and the code, such as &cRed.
What's the difference between & and §?
§ is what the game itself understands. & is a stand-in that plugins accept and turn into §. server.properties needs §, which the generators on this site write as \u00A7.
How do I use HEX colours on a server?
Since 1.16 the game supports any colour in JSON text. In plugins, use MiniMessage (<#ff8800>) or &#ff8800 if the plugin supports it. Copy the format you need from the converter.
What's the code for bold?
&l (or §l). Italic is &o, underlined &n, strikethrough &m, obfuscated &k, reset &r.
The tools are free. So is anti-cheat protection
DGuard — the best anticheat for a modern Minecraft server — catches all 47 cheat types in our comparison; the nearest rival, Intave, catches 27. Free up to 30 players online, with the same protection as on paid plans.