Prune, reset or delete chunks in bulk → MCA Selector

This is the job the label fits best. MCA Selector shows your Java world as a top-down map and lets you select chunks by hand or by filter query — DataVersion, InhabitedTime, biome, block palette and more — then delete, reset or export them in one pass. It is free and MIT-licensed, runs externally on Windows, macOS and Linux, and adds maintenance extras like region defragmentation and CSV selections. Start with the pruning workflow or the world-size guide if the goal is a smaller, update-ready world.

Edit or convert a Bedrock world → Amulet Editor

MCA Selector cannot open Bedrock worlds — the author has stated Bedrock support is not planned. Amulet Editor can: it edits Java 1.12+ and Bedrock 1.7+ worlds in 3D and converts between versions and editions. Compiled builds cost $10+/year (source builds are an option). Read the Bedrock situation explained first if you are not sure which format your world is in, then the head-to-head comparison.

Build, copy or terraform inside the game → WorldEdit

WorldEdit is a free mod/plugin (GPLv3) that runs inside a live Java world or server: selection tools, copy/paste, fills and terrain brushes, with instant visual feedback. If your “editing” means building, it is the right pick — MCA Selector cannot place a single block visually. The trade-off is scale: WorldEdit works where you stand, while whole-world operations belong to an external tool. See MCA Selector vs WorldEdit for the server workflow split.

Fix player data or a single file → NBTExplorer

A broken player file, a setting inside level.dat, the raw tags of one region file — these are single-file jobs, and NBTExplorer (free, MIT) is the tree editor built for them. It has no map and no bulk selection, and needs neither: you open the file and edit the tags. For the same kind of data across many chunks at once, that is MCA Selector’s NBT Changer instead — the comparison draws the line precisely.

Deep-edit one chunk’s NBT → MCA Selector’s Chunk Editor

The in-between job — one chunk, but all of its data — is already covered inside MCA Selector: select exactly one chunk and the Chunk Editor opens its full region, poi and entities NBT tree for editing, written to disk when you press Apply. It is the one place in MCA Selector where an explicit apply step exists.

Render your world as an image → Chunky

Chunky is included because people keep searching for it among editors — it is a free, GPL-3.0 renderer that path-traces Java worlds into realistic images. It edits nothing. If your end product is a picture of your world rather than a changed world, Chunky is the pick, ideally after a cleanup pass so the render shows the world at its best.

The shortlist

Whichever tool you pick, back up first: world editors change your save files directly. Close Minecraft (and stop your server, if the world is on one), copy the whole world folder somewhere safe, and only then start editing.

Download MCA Selector 2.9

If MCA Selector is the tool that fits your job, get the current release from the MCA Selector download page — the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg and the Linux .deb/.rpm, every button pointing at the official GitHub release files with the SHA-256 checksum listed, plus a clearly labelled site mirror as a fallback. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

One last backup reminder: keep the copy of your world you made before editing until you have loaded the edited world in Minecraft and confirmed it looks right. Deletions and NBT changes in MCA Selector are permanent once applied.

Related guides

The full alternatives overview and the remaining head-to-head:

• MCA Selector alternatives, all in one place
• MCA Selector vs WorldEdit
• How to use MCA Selector: the complete beginner’s guide

Amulet Editor — for 3D editing, conversion and Bedrock

Amulet is the modern all-round world editor: copy, paste, fill, replace and delete inside a 3D view, and convert worlds between Java 1.12+ and Bedrock 1.7+ versions and editions. It is the alternative to reach for when your world is Bedrock, when you need conversion, or when you want to place blocks rather than manage chunks. The trade-off: compiled builds cost $10+/year (the source can be built yourself), against MCA Selector’s free MIT download. Full comparison: MCA Selector vs Amulet Editor. If your question is specifically about Bedrock, start with does MCA Selector work with Bedrock.

WorldEdit — for building inside the game

WorldEdit is a free mod/plugin (GPLv3) that works in a running Java world: copy and paste structures, fill volumes, brush terrain with commands and selection tools, all visible in 3D immediately. It is the alternative when the work is live building or in-game server administration. It does not do offline, whole-world chunk maintenance — that remains MCA Selector’s territory. Full comparison: MCA Selector vs WorldEdit.

NBTExplorer — for raw NBT in single files

NBTExplorer is a free, MIT-licensed tree editor for NBT files: level.dat, player data, region files, schematics. No map, no bulk chunk selection — instead, direct access to every tag in the one file you open. It is the alternative when your problem is a player’s data file or a world setting rather than a thousand chunks. Full comparison: MCA Selector vs NBTExplorer.

Chunky — not an editor at all (and that is fine)

Chunky appears in “best Minecraft editors” lists surprisingly often, and it does not belong there: Chunky is a path-tracing renderer (free, GPL-3.0) that turns a Java world into realistic images. It cannot change a single block. If what you actually want is a beautiful render of your world — for a server page, a video thumbnail, a poster — Chunky is an excellent tool, and it pairs well with MCA Selector rather than replacing it: prune the world first, then render it.

MCEdit — the old name in older guides

Many older tutorials still point at MCEdit, the classic 3D editor of an earlier era. Treat it as a legacy reference when you meet it in old guides; the current choices for new work are the tools above. If an old guide tells you to do a bulk chunk job in MCEdit, the same job today is a filter-and-delete pass in MCA Selector, covered in our beginner’s guide.

A word of caution about “online MCA editors”

There is no official web-based MCA Selector: the tool is a desktop download from its GitHub project, and the project author has publicly flagged an impersonation site. If a page offers an “online MCA editor” under the project’s name, do not upload your world to it. Our online and mobile versions page explains what does and does not exist.

Alternatives at a glance

Whichever tool you pick, back up first: world tools change your save files directly. Close Minecraft (and stop your server, if the world is on one), copy the whole world folder somewhere safe, and only then start editing.

Download MCA Selector 2.9

If MCA Selector is the tool that fits your job, get the current release from the MCA Selector download page — the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg and the Linux .deb/.rpm, every button pointing at the official GitHub release files with the SHA-256 checksum listed, plus a clearly labelled site mirror as a fallback. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

One last backup reminder: keep the copy of your world you made before editing until you have loaded the edited world in Minecraft and confirmed it looks right. Deletions and NBT changes in MCA Selector are permanent once applied.

Related guides

Prefer a task-by-task shortlist instead? Try the use-case guide, or the head-to-head pages:

• Best Minecraft chunk editors, picked by task
• MCA Selector vs Amulet Editor
• MCA Selector and Bedrock: what actually works
• Prune your world with MCA Selector

The short answer

• Choose NBTExplorer to open one file and edit its raw tags by hand: a player’s inventory or location in their .dat file, game rules and settings in level.dat, or the tag tree inside a single region file or schematic.
• Choose MCA Selector to change the same field across hundreds or thousands of chunks at once with the NBT Changer, to find chunks by filter (biome, block palette, entities, DataVersion…), or to delete/export whole chunks and regions.
• Overlap exists and is worth knowing: MCA Selector’s Chunk Editor edits one chunk’s full NBT tree, so for a single chunk either tool can do the job. NBTExplorer goes beyond chunks to standalone files MCA Selector does not touch.

Side-by-side

Where NBTExplorer wins

• Player data. A stuck player, a corrupted inventory, a location that needs resetting — that data lives in per-player .dat files, outside the chunk system MCA Selector works on. NBTExplorer opens those files directly.
• level.dat and world-level settings. The world’s root settings file is a single NBT document; a tree editor is the natural tool for it.
• Archaeology in a single file. When you need to see exactly what tags a region file or schematic contains — every value, in order — the tree view shows you the raw structure with nothing abstracted away.
• Small, precise, one-off fixes where setting up a selection and a batch operation would be more machinery than the fix deserves.

Where MCA Selector wins

• Scale. “Set this biome on every chunk in the badlands project”, “delete entities from all chunks matching this filter”, “replace one block type with another across the region” — the NBT Changer applies a field change to an entire selection in one operation, in Change mode (only where the field exists) or Force mode (write it everywhere).
• Finding the chunks first. The chunk filter locates chunks by DataVersion, InhabitedTime, biome, block palette, entities, structures and more — the map shows you what matched before anything is written.
• Structural operations. Deleting, exporting, importing and defragmenting chunks and regions are file-level operations NBTExplorer does not attempt.
• A maintained, current release line. MCA Selector tracks new Minecraft versions (the current 2.9 covers worlds up to Minecraft 26.3); NBTExplorer’s development moves slowly by comparison.

Using them together

A typical repair session uses both. MCA Selector does the finding and the heavy lifting: filter for the chunks that match the problem, apply the batch fix with the NBT Changer, or export the affected chunks for inspection. Then, if one specific file still needs hand work — a player’s data, a value inside level.dat, a single tag the batch operation deliberately did not cover — that file goes into NBTExplorer for surgery. The rule of thumb: world-scale questions start on the map; file-scale questions start in the tree.

Whichever tool you pick, back up first: world editors change your save files directly. Close Minecraft (and stop your server, if the world is on one), copy the whole world folder somewhere safe, and only then start editing. This applies twice over here, because both tools write raw data files.

Pick by task

Download MCA Selector 2.9

If MCA Selector is the tool that fits your job, get the current release from the MCA Selector download page — the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg and the Linux .deb/.rpm, every button pointing at the official GitHub release files with the SHA-256 checksum listed, plus a clearly labelled site mirror as a fallback. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

One last backup reminder: keep the copy of your world you made before editing until you have loaded the edited world in Minecraft and confirmed it looks right. Deletions and NBT changes in MCA Selector are permanent once applied.

Related guides

Go deeper on the NBT side of MCA Selector, or read the other comparisons:

• NBT Changer in MCA Selector: batch-edit chunk data
• Chunk Editor: edit a single chunk’s NBT, then Apply
• MCA Selector vs Amulet Editor: 3D editing and Bedrock
• MCA Selector alternatives, all in one place

The short answer

• Choose WorldEdit to build while you play: copying structures, pasting schematics, filling volumes, brushing terrain — with the result visible instantly in 3D, on single-player or on a server you administer.
• Choose MCA Selector for offline world maintenance: pruning or resetting chunks by filter, deleting terrain in bulk, shrinking a world before an update, or batch-editing chunk fields across a whole save.
• On a server, they split the work: WorldEdit for in-game jobs while the server runs, MCA Selector during a maintenance window with the server stopped. Details below.

Side-by-side

Where WorldEdit wins

• Building in the moment. You see every change in 3D as it happens and can walk through the result immediately. MCA Selector edits a map view of files; it is not a building tool and has no way to place blocks visually.
• Server administration in-game. As a plugin, WorldEdit fits the permissions and workflow of a running server — fixing a griefed area or pasting a spawn build without taking the world offline.
• Fine-grained creative edits. Brushes, masks and schematic pasting are built for shaping relatively small areas precisely — the opposite end of the scale from whole-region operations.

Where MCA Selector wins

• Whole-world operations. “Delete every chunk that was only loaded for a few minutes” or “reset all terrain outside our bases before the update” is a filter query away — see the chunk filter guide and the pruning guide. Doing the same chunk-by-chunk in game is not realistic.
• No world needs to be loaded. Maintenance happens on the files directly, which is also why a backup is non-negotiable: edits are written straight to disk.
• Maintenance extras WorldEdit does not aim at: exporting chunks to another world, saving selections as CSV, defragmenting region files to reclaim space, and a CLI mode for repeatable jobs.

The server split, concretely

If you run a Java server, the practical division looks like this. Day to day, WorldEdit handles the in-game work: staff building, repairs, pasting structures, with the server online. Periodically — before a major Minecraft update, or when the world file has ballooned — schedule a maintenance window: stop the server, back up the whole world folder, open it in MCA Selector to reset or delete the chunks nobody uses, then restart. Never point MCA Selector at a world a server is actively writing to: the server’s own saves would fight the external edits, and the last writer wins.

Whichever tool you pick, back up first: world editors change your save files directly. Close Minecraft (and stop your server, if the world is on one), copy the whole world folder somewhere safe, and only then start editing.

Pick by task

Download MCA Selector 2.9

If MCA Selector is the tool that fits your job, get the current release from the MCA Selector download page — the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg and the Linux .deb/.rpm, every button pointing at the official GitHub release files with the SHA-256 checksum listed, plus a clearly labelled site mirror as a fallback. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

One last backup reminder: keep the copy of your world you made before editing until you have loaded the edited world in Minecraft and confirmed it looks right. Deletions and NBT changes in MCA Selector are permanent once applied.

Related guides

The other comparisons in this series:

• MCA Selector vs Amulet Editor: 3D editing and Bedrock
• MCA Selector vs NBTExplorer: batch edits vs single-file surgery
• Best Minecraft chunk editors, picked by task
• How to use MCA Selector: the complete beginner’s guide

The short answer

• Choose MCA Selector to prune, reset or slim down a Java world in bulk, to delete or export chunks by filter query, or to batch-change chunk fields across thousands of chunks. It is free (MIT licence) and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
• Choose Amulet Editor to edit a world visually in 3D — copy, paste, fill, replace and delete blocks by hand — to convert a world between Java and Bedrock or between versions, or whenever your world is a Bedrock world at all.
• Many world owners end up using both: Amulet for conversion and visual work, MCA Selector for bulk cleanup. A combined workflow is covered below.

Side-by-side

Where MCA Selector wins

• Bulk cleanup is its home turf. Resetting every chunk players only flew over, deleting terrain generated by an old version before an update, or exporting a region to another world is a select-filter-delete job on a map — see the pruning guide and the chunk filter guide.
• It is genuinely free. MIT-licensed, no paid tier, no licence to buy, and the checksum-verified files are on the project’s GitHub.
• It scales to whole worlds. Selections can be saved as CSV, filters combine conditions with grouping, and a command-line mode can repeat the same operation without clicking through the interface.
• Field-level batch fixes. The NBT Changer can stamp a biome, replace a block type by name, or delete entities across an entire selection in one pass — work that would be one chunk at a time in a visual editor.

Where Amulet Editor wins

• Bedrock, full stop. MCA Selector cannot open a Bedrock world at all — the author has said Bedrock support is not planned. If your world is on console, mobile or Windows Bedrock, Amulet is the editor on this page that can work with it. Our MCA Selector and Bedrock guide explains the situation and the workarounds in detail.
• Version and edition conversion. Amulet can convert worlds between Java 1.12+ and Bedrock 1.7+ versions. MCA Selector edits Java worlds in their existing format; it is not a converter.
• Real 3D editing. If you want to place blocks — move a build, fill a volume, reshape terrain while looking at it — that is Amulet’s job. MCA Selector has no 3D building mode; its ReplaceBlocks swaps one block type for another by name across a selection, which is maintenance, not architecture.
• A Python API for scripted world manipulation, if you would rather write code than click.

Using both together

The tools overlap less than they complement each other. Two combinations that make sense with what each tool actually does:

• Convert first, clean up second. Use Amulet to convert a Bedrock world (or an old Java world) into a current Java world, then open the result in MCA Selector to prune unused chunks and batch-fix fields before you play or publish it.
• Design in 3D, maintain on the map. Do visual work — moving a build, patching terrain — in Amulet, and keep MCA Selector for the periodic bulk jobs: resetting explored-but-unused terrain and defragmenting region files, as in our world size guide.

Whichever tool you pick, back up first: world editors change your save files directly. Close Minecraft (and stop your server, if the world is on one), copy the whole world folder somewhere safe, and only then start editing.

Pick by task

Download MCA Selector 2.9

If MCA Selector is the tool that fits your job, get the current release from the MCA Selector download page — the Windows installer, the cross-platform .jar, the macOS .dmg and the Linux .deb/.rpm, every button pointing at the official GitHub release files with the SHA-256 checksum listed, plus a clearly labelled site mirror as a fallback. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

One last backup reminder: keep the copy of your world you made before editing until you have loaded the edited world in Minecraft and confirmed it looks right. Deletions and NBT changes in MCA Selector are permanent once applied.

Related guides

Read the other comparisons in this series, or go straight to the task guides:

• MCA Selector vs WorldEdit: in-game building vs offline cleanup
• MCA Selector vs NBTExplorer: batch edits vs single-file surgery
• Does MCA Selector work with Bedrock? The honest answer
• How to delete chunks in MCA Selector