How to Find a Minecraft Server's IP Address and Port

A server's address is whatever it publishes as its connect string — usually a clean hostname like play.example.com, occasionally a raw numeric IP, and sometimes that hostname with a port stuck on the end after a colon. On this site, every listing on the full server list shows that exact string in its connect field, and the whole job is copying it into Minecraft without mangling a single character. Where people trip up is the port: Java treats it as an optional suffix on one address field, Bedrock gives it a field of its own that you almost always have to fill, and a lot of big servers look like they have no port at all. None of that is random once you know what each edition does with the number, and the general how to join a Minecraft server steps take over once you've got the address typed correctly.

What "IP address" actually means on a listing

The thing a listing calls a server's IP is almost never a numeric IP. It's a hostname — play.example.com, mc.somenetwork.net — and that's deliberate. A hostname resolves to the real numeric address through DNS, so the owner can move the server to a new machine and you keep using the same address. Trying to dig up the numbers behind a hostname is wasted effort; paste the hostname exactly as it's published and let DNS do the lookup.

A Minecraft address is just host or host:port, nothing more. It is not a web URL, so there's no http://, no www., and no trailing path. If a listing shows play.example.com, that's the entire thing you type. If it shows play.example.com:25577, the part after the colon is the port, and you keep it.

Java: one field, the port is optional

In Java Edition, both the Add Server screen and Direct Connect give you a single Server Address box. You put the hostname or IPv4 in there and, if needed, append the port after a colon — 123.45.67.89:25565 or, for a LAN box on a custom port, 192.168.1.2:1337.

The reason that suffix is optional is the default. Java servers listen on port 25565 unless the owner changed it, set by the server-port=25565 line in server.properties. When a server is on 25565, the client assumes that number, so you type only the hostname and leave the colon off entirely. You append :port only when the server runs on a non-default port and isn't hiding it behind DNS.

So the rule is simple: copy the connect string the listing gives you. If it ends in : and some number, keep the number. If it's a bare hostname, type the bare hostname. The listing already reflects the form that server needs — you don't decide whether to add a port, the published address does.

Why big servers seem to have no port

Plenty of large Java networks run on a non-default port internally but still publish a clean hostname with no :port, and the trick behind that is an SRV record. It's a DNS entry published at the name _minecraft._tcp in front of the domain — for a server at play.example.net that's _minecraft._tcp.play.example.net — and it carries four things: priority, weight, port, and target. The port and target are the two that matter: they tell the client "the real server is on this host, at this port."

Before it connects, the Java client looks up that SRV record. If one exists, it quietly routes you to whatever port and target the record names, which is exactly why you can join a server running on some odd internal port by typing nothing but the hostname. If no SRV record exists, the client falls back to a normal A-record lookup on the bare hostname and uses 25565. An SRV record doesn't hold an IP itself — it points at a target host that still has to resolve through its own A record — but from your seat it just means "no port needed." If you run your own domain and want this behavior, setting up an SRV record for a custom domain walks through the values.

This is a Java-only mechanism — Bedrock has no equivalent, which is why it handles the port differently.

Bedrock: a separate Port field you have to fill

Bedrock doesn't do SRV lookups, so it can't infer a port the way Java can — which is why the Bedrock Add Server screen splits things into three fields: Server Name, Server Address, and Port. The address goes in one box, the port goes in its own, and you fill it in yourself.

That port is almost always 19132, Bedrock's default over UDP, set by server-port=19132 in the Bedrock dedicated server config (IPv6 uses server-portv6=19133). Unless a crossplay listing specifies a different number, 19132 is what goes in the Port field. The one mistake to watch for: don't grab a Java address ending in :25565 and drop that 25565 into Bedrock's Port field. That's the Java port and it won't connect you — use the Bedrock port the listing publishes. If a server's Bedrock connect details aren't listed, check the crossplay servers tag, where the Bedrock address and port are the whole point of the entry.

Copy it without a typo

Most "the server is broken" reports are a single wrong character. The address looks right to you because your eye fills in what you expected to type, so the fix is to stop typing it by hand:

• Select and copy the entire string in one go. Don't retype it from memory or from a screenshot.
• Check the ends. A leading or trailing space is invisible and breaks the connection; Bedrock's Join button often greys out when the address or port has a stray space.
• Watch the confusable characters. Capital O versus zero 0, lowercase l versus the digit 1. These are the usual culprits in a hostname that "looks perfect."
• Don't dress it up. No http://, no www., no path on the end. Host, or host and port, and nothing else.

Get those four right and the address itself is no longer the variable.

Reading the failure messages

When a connection fails, the error tells you whether you mistyped the address or something else is wrong — they're not the same problem.

• Can't resolve hostname (or Unknown host) means DNS couldn't find that name at all. That's a spelling problem ninety-nine times out of a hundred — a wrong character, a missing dot, a domain that doesn't exist. It is almost never a port issue, because the client never even got far enough to think about a port.
• Connection refused: no further information means the host was reached but nothing is listening on the port you used. Either the port is wrong or the server is offline. Direct Connect usually wraps this in a Failed to connect to the server screen with the refusal as the detail line.
• Connection timed out: no further information means no answer at all — a firewall, a port-forwarding gap, or an unreachable host eating the request silently.

Sorting a failure into "couldn't find the name" versus "found the host, wrong port" versus "got nothing back" tells you whether to recheck your typing or accept the server's just down right now.

FAQ

Where's the connect address on a listing here?

Every entry on the full list shows it in the connect field, already in the form that server needs — bare hostname when an SRV record or default port covers it, host:port when a custom Java port is exposed, and an explicit Port value on crossplay entries for Bedrock. You don't have to decide whether to add a port; copy the field as shown. If you want to confirm a server matches your client, the version pages at /servers/version/26.2 and /servers/version/26.1 filter the list down.

How do I check a server's port if I host it myself?

Open server.properties and read server-port. Java defaults to server-port=25565; leave server-ip= blank so it listens on every interface, which the wiki recommends. On a Bedrock dedicated server the keys are server-port=19132 and server-portv6=19133. Whatever number is on the right of server-port= is what players append after the colon on Java, or type into the Port field on Bedrock — unless you publish an SRV record to hide it.

A friend gave me an IPv6 address — how do I add the port?

Wrap the IPv6 literal in square brackets before the colon, like [::1]:25565, so Minecraft doesn't read the address's own colons as the port separator. This is an edge case; almost every server you'll meet hands you an IPv4 address or a hostname, where a plain host:port is all you need.

My SRV-record server still asks for a port on Bedrock — why?

Because the _minecraft._tcp lookup is Java-only, and a Bedrock client never performs it — so even a flawless SRV record leaves you entering the port in Bedrock's Port field, normally 19132. No DNS change fixes that. The only way to give Bedrock players a port-free address is a server-side bridge like Geyser that answers Bedrock clients directly; DNS alone can't do for Bedrock what an SRV record does for Java.