Howchoo – How-to and DIY Guides for Makers, Programmers, and Everyone

Feb 25, 2022

5 minutes

Did you know that Minecraft actually lets you play pre-release versions of the game? That’s right! You can explore and discover new features coming to Minecraft before the official version is released. This ability is available to anyone who wishes to try!

These versions are generally unstable, so it’s best to not try to use them with existing worlds. Instead, create new worlds that you can mess around in!

It’s actually incredibly easy to download, install, and play a snapshot version of Minecraft. Follow the steps below to learn how!

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Be sure to save this zip to a location on your computer that you can easily access later. You can download the latest snapshot from Minecraft’s website or by clicking this link.

To unzip, you’ll need a program like WinZip to do so. You’ll want to export this file into your .minecraft/versions folder.

To find your .minecraft folder:

Windows: Press Win+R and type %appdata%.minecraft and press “Ok”
Mac OS X: Ijn the Go menu in Finder, select “Go to Folder” and enter ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft
Linux: ~/.minecraft or /home//.minecraft/

Once the launcher is open, navigate to the “Installations” tab.

Make sure the box for “Modded” is ticked, then click the New Installations button, as shown above.

In the new window that appears:

Name it whatever you want.
Click the version that matches the name of the file you downloaded and extracted.
Click Create when ready.

You should now see the created new installation listed in the Installations tab. Press Play to start up Minecraft!

Learn about the first 1.19 experimental snapshot, featuring the Deep Dark Biome!

NEXT UP

How to Change Game Version for Minecraft: Java Edition

Odin (147)

Mar 4, 2022

2 minutes

Minecraft will automatically set itself to the current version for ease of use, but sometimes you need to revert, especially if your favorite map was created with an earlier version.