When I got my Steam Deck in 2022, I found myself with the very First World problem of having too many Minecraft installations across too many computers, and wanting to keep everything synced. That way I could do some building on my train commute to work, then come home and play some more on the same world on my couch gaming PC, then render some ReplayMod highlights from the day on my battlestation. That's a use-case where just setting up a NAS isn't gonna cut it, as the machines I've got running Minecraft (ranging from a Raspberry Pi, to the controller-operated Steam Deck to an absolute beast of a basement rig) need their own settings, client mods and tweaks for optimal gameplay.
Furthermore, since I make mods and datapacks and have content creation aspirations, several of my machines have multiple instance variants that are, for example, streamlined for development and testing, with a lot of really complicated Venn diagrams of mods, resource packs and world files.
In short, there are three different levels of coordination that need to take place:
Selective sharing across different computers
Selective sharing across different instances on the same computer
Selective sharing across server and client installations
Enter EnderChest, a command-line utility that lets you organize all your Minecraft files into a single folder that you can sync across all your computers and link to as many instances as you've created (EnderChest has been tested using both the official launcher and a bunch of MultiMC variants, but other launchers should work as well). Files are organized into "shulker boxes" which can be highly customized to link either to specific instances (on specific machines) or to all instances matching a set of filters.
EnderChest can be installed in seconds via the pip package manager, after which setting up a chest is a simple matter of running:
enderchest craft
followed by
enderchest craft shulker_box <box-name>
Once you've moved your mods, resource packs, log folders and screenshots into your EnderChest, running
enderchest place
will create symbolic links from all of your Minecraft instances pointing into your EnderChest, and running
enderchest close
will push all local files to any other EnderChest installations you've set up.
I currently have 41 shulker boxes managing dozens of instances across five separate computers. Yeah, it took some time to get organized, but now when I create a new, say,
Minecraft 1.19.3
Fabric instance,
on a machine that can handle shading and PBR textures
featuring mods from three separate modpacks
I just create a blank instance in PrismLauncher, register it with
edit a simple config file to add a few tags, and then after running
enderchest open && enderchest place
I've got that instance 100% set up with all my mods, shader settings and even options.txt configured with my default resource packs and autoJump turned off!
Anyway, that's the pitch. If EnderChest sounds interesting to you, full installation and usage are available for Mac and Linux (Windows support is experimental due to the reliance on rsync, but I'd love to support some beta testers). And if you're interested in contributing, the project is open source and available on GitHub.
When I got my Steam Deck in 2022, I found myself with the very First World problem of having too many Minecraft installations across too many computers, and wanting to keep everything synced. That way I could do some building on my train commute to work, then come home and play some more on the same world on my couch gaming PC, then render some ReplayMod highlights from the day on my battlestation. That's a use-case where just setting up a NAS isn't gonna cut it, as the machines I've got running Minecraft (ranging from a Raspberry Pi, to the controller-operated Steam Deck to an absolute beast of a basement rig) need their own settings, client mods and tweaks for optimal gameplay.
Furthermore, since I make mods and datapacks and have content creation aspirations, several of my machines have multiple instance variants that are, for example, streamlined for development and testing, with a lot of really complicated Venn diagrams of mods, resource packs and world files.
In short, there are three different levels of coordination that need to take place:
Enter EnderChest, a command-line utility that lets you organize all your Minecraft files into a single folder that you can sync across all your computers and link to as many instances as you've created (EnderChest has been tested using both the official launcher and a bunch of MultiMC variants, but other launchers should work as well). Files are organized into "shulker boxes" which can be highly customized to link either to specific instances (on specific machines) or to all instances matching a set of filters.
EnderChest can be installed in seconds via the pip package manager, after which setting up a chest is a simple matter of running:
followed by
Once you've moved your mods, resource packs, log folders and screenshots into your EnderChest, running
will create symbolic links from all of your Minecraft instances pointing into your EnderChest, and running
will push all local files to any other EnderChest installations you've set up.
I currently have 41 shulker boxes managing dozens of instances across five separate computers. Yeah, it took some time to get organized, but now when I create a new, say,
I just create a blank instance in PrismLauncher, register it with
edit a simple config file to add a few tags, and then after running
I've got that instance 100% set up with all my mods, shader settings and even options.txt configured with my default resource packs and autoJump turned off!
Anyway, that's the pitch. If EnderChest sounds interesting to you, full installation and usage are available for Mac and Linux (Windows support is experimental due to the reliance on rsync, but I'd love to support some beta testers). And if you're interested in contributing, the project is open source and available on GitHub.
This looks pretty cool, I'm going to give it a try!