Schedules

Automatic restarts, shutdowns and commands on a timetable.

The Schedules tab runs an action on your server at a set time, without you being there.

What you can schedule

Four actions:

And four frequencies: daily, every few hours, weekly and monthly.

The distinction in that table matters. Restart, Stop and Command are sent to a live process — if the server is already off, nothing happens. Start is the opposite: it is the one that brings a stopped server back.

The one everybody should set

A nightly restart. A game server that runs for weeks accumulates memory it never gives back, especially with mods or plugins. A daily restart at a quiet hour — 5 or 6 in the morning suits most communities — keeps performance steady and costs you nothing.

Pair it with a warning so players are not thrown out mid-build. Two schedules, a few minutes apart:

1. Command at 05:55 — say Server restarting in 5 minutes
2. Restart at 06:00

Useful patterns

Scheduled shutdown overnight. If your server is only used in the evenings, Stop at night and Start in the afternoon. Nothing is saved on the bill, but a server that is not running cannot be griefed and cannot crash.

Periodic save. Some games hold world state in memory for a long time between saves. A scheduled save-all (Minecraft) or the game's equivalent reduces how much is lost in a hard crash.

Regular announcements. A daily say with your Discord invite reaches players who never read the MOTD.

Things to watch

Commands are exactly what you would type. No leading slash for Minecraft, and the plugin has to be installed for its command to exist. Test it in the console first, then schedule it.

Time is server time. Check what the panel shows before assuming your own timezone.

Do not stack restarts. One daily restart is healthy. Restarting every two hours mostly annoys players and hides the real problem — if a server needs that, it is short of memory, and a larger plan is the actual fix.