How to play Minecraft PE Worlds on Minecraft Java Edition
Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox game and is available on multiple platforms including Pocket Edition (Minecraft PE). Minecraft PE allows players to play on the go where ever they are on their Android or iOS devices. This can lead a player to have different worlds on their mobile phone device and their desktop client. This guide will show users how to play Minecraft PE Worlds on Minecraft Java Edition on their desktop.
Required Utilities
Unfortunately there is not a single utility that can simply copy your Minecraft world from your mobile device to your Java Edition. The process involves different steps using the utilities below depending on what version you’re running.
Here are some utilities we’ll use in this guide:
- MCPE Backup App – We’ll use this to copy the world on your mobile device into a zip folder
- FX File Explorer – This will allow us to copy the backed up world to your Google Drive
- Google Drive – We’ll temporarily store our Minecraft PE world here to copy to our Minecraft Java Edition computer.
- Amulet – Minecraft World Editor and Converter
- Minecraft Realms – Only needed if you need to move an existing MCPE World to the Java Edition on your desktop
Copy a NEW Minecraft PE World to Java Edition
Minecraft PE stores worlds in different places on your phone depending on how you have the app configured. To make a new world accessible so we can copy it to Minecraft Bedrock Edition we need to do the following:
On your Mobile Device
- Open Minecraft PE
- Click Settings > Profile – Change the File Storage Location to External. The default location is application
- Create a new world
- Open MCPE Backup
- Select the World you wish to copy to your Bedrock Edition
- Open FX File Explorer and go to / > Storage > Emulated > 0 > MCPE
- Select the folder with the latest backup file. You may need to open each one if there are several.
- Press and hold the ZIP file with the World (it will have today’s date/time as part of the file name if you just backed it up). The “Cut, Copy Delete and three dot menu” option will appear on top of the screen
- Click the three dots menu and select Share
- On the Share menu, select “Save to Drive”
- Change the name of the file if you wish, otherwise select Save in the lower right
On your PC
- After the file uploads/saves, go to your Google Drive, right click on the file and download it to your computer.
- Open the folder and the ZIP file and copy the contents to a temporary folder
- If the Minecraft version (1.16.5, 1.17, etc.) on your phone is different from your desktop version, convert it to the same version using Amulet – see below.
- Copy your the World folder to C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves – remember to replace the username part with your own PC username
- Start Minecraft Java Edition and load the world.
Copying an Existing Minecraft PE World to Bedrock Edition
There’s a few more steps but it is possible to take an existing Minecraft PE World and move it to your desktop so you can play it on Minecraft Java Edition. To play an existing Minecraft PE world on Minecraft Java Edition, follow these steps:
On your Mobile Device
- Open Minecraft PE
- Click Edit (Pencil icon) for the World you want to transfer and select Play on Realm. This requires that you have a Realm account with Minecraft. Save and exit from the Realm
- Click Settings > Profile – Change the File Storage Location to External. The default location is application
- Back on the Realm, go into Settings > Backups
- Click on the down arrow next to the latest copy to down a copy of the World.
- Open MCPE Backup
- Select the World you wish to copy to your Bedrock Edition
- Open FX File Explorer and go to / > Storage > Emulated > 0 > MCPE
- Select the folder with the latest backup file. You may need to open each one if there are several.
- Press and hold the ZIP file with the World (it will have today’s date/time as part of the file name if you just backed it up). The “Cut, Copy Delete and three dot menu” option will appear on top of the screen
- Click the three dots menu and select Share
- On the Share menu, select “Save to Drive”
- Change the name of the file if you wish, otherwise select Save in the lower right
On your PC
- After the file uploads/saves, go to your Google Drive, right click on the file and download it to your computer.
- Open the folder and the ZIP file and copy the contents to a temporary folder
- If the Minecraft version (1.16.5, 1.17, etc.) on your phone is different from your desktop version, you’ll need to convert it to the same version using Amulet – see below.
- Copy your the World folder to C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves – remember to replace the username part with your own PC username
- Start Minecraft Java Edition and load the world.
Troubleshooting
- World is missing or not listed in Minecraft Java Edition – Make sure the world is the same version. The version of Minecraft – v1.16.5 or 1.17, etc. should be the same on the mobile device and the desktop installation. Try converting it through Amulet and copying the converted world to C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves
- World does not load – Make sure the world is the same version. The version of Minecraft – v1.16.5 or 1.17, etc. should be the same on the mobile device and the desktop installation. Try converting it through Amulet and copying the converted world to C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves
Converting the World Version in Amulet
Minecraft is pretty sensitive to what version a Minecraft world comes from. Thankfully there are utilities that will convert a Minecraft World from one version to another. The best tool to to use is called Amulet. Amulet will convert any Minecraft version into another and vice versa.
- Open your desktop version of Minecraft Java Edition
- Create a New World. This will be our “target” world for the conversion. If you want to save a copy of this world, copy it from C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves (changing “(your pc username)” to the username you use to log into the computer) and copy the world to another folder.
- If you haven’t already, download Amulet and extract it to a folder.
- Run amulet_app.exe and maximize the window
- Open the World that you want to convert
- Click on the Convert tab on the left and then Select Output World
- Select the new world you created above. Amulet will use this version to determine what version it needs to convert the source world to.
- If needed, copy the world to C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\Saves
- Open Minecraft and select the converted world
Conclusion
While many guides will say that it’s impossible or there’s no way to play your Minecraft Pocket Edition (MCPE) worlds on a PC, the steps above will show you how it’s possible to play Minecraft PE Worlds on Minecraft Java Edition. What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear them! You can contact us and share your thoughts on playing Minecraft on different platforms!