You want to remove a handful of chunks, but MCA Selector will only let you select — and delete — entire regions at once. This is reported upstream as issue #529 (“Unable to delete individual chunks, only whole regions”), and it is not a bug in your install: it is the tool’s zoom-dependent selection modes doing exactly what they are designed to do.
Why it happens: two selection modes, one zoom control
MCA Selector’s map has two selection granularities. Zoomed out, you are in region mode: each cell of the grid is a whole region file — 32×32 chunks, 512×512 blocks. Zoomed in far enough for the chunk grid to appear, the same clicking selects individual chunks. If the view is zoomed out, single-chunk selection simply is not available, which is why every selection snaps to whole regions.
Fix it step by step
- Open your world and find the area you want to edit.
- Zoom in (mouse wheel) until you can see the fine grid of individual chunks — the selection highlight will now follow single chunks instead of region-sized blocks.
- Click or drag to select exactly the chunks you intend to delete.
- Before deleting, read the selection back: zoom and pan to confirm the highlight covers only what you meant to remove.
- Delete via Selection → Delete selected chunks — and remember it is instant and irreversible.
The selection modes, including brush selection with Shift and subtraction mode, are covered in full in our selection tools guide, and the deletion workflow itself in how to delete chunks.
Already deleted a whole region by accident?
This is the scenario in issue #447, and we will not sugar-coat it: there is no undo. Deletions modify the original region files the moment you confirm, and the tool keeps no recycle bin or backup of its own. The only recovery path is restoring the world (or the affected region files) from a backup you made before editing. If you have no backup, the deleted terrain will regenerate as fresh chunks the next time Minecraft loads that area — anything built there is, unfortunately, gone.
Prevention checklist
- Back up the whole world folder before every editing session — with instant writes, this is your only undo.
- Check whether you are in chunk mode or region mode (zoom level) before selecting.
- For valuable selections you may need again, export the selection as a CSV first (Selection → Export selection).
- Re-read the highlighted area once more before confirming a delete — especially near the borders of regions you want to keep.
- Work on a copy of the world for destructive experiments, then repeat the confirmed steps on the real one.
If zooming in does not switch modes
Issue #529 is still open upstream, so if the chunk grid appears but selection still snaps to regions on the current version (2.9), note your zoom level, MCA Selector version and operating system and add them to that issue — precise reproduction details are what an open report like this needs.
Get the Current Version First
Several of the problems in this guide disappear on the current release. MCA Selector 2.9 is free and open source — get the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg or the Linux .deb/.rpm from the MCA Selector download page, where every button points at the official GitHub release files with their SHA-256 checksums.
More troubleshooting
This page is part of our MCA Selector troubleshooting hub, which groups every known launch, loading and editing problem by symptom.