Config Types
Minecraft Forge supports 3 types of configuration files, depending on what they configure:
- Client configuration, for options specific to your local Minecraft game (called client). This includes anything related to the game interface (graphics, controls, audio, local QoL features...), and player-specific settings (even if visible by other players, like skin/main hand preferences).
- Server configuration, for options specific to each world. This includes enabling/customizing multiplayer features or configuring the behavior of blocks/items/entities in the world, as they aren't tied to a player.
- Common configuration, which is specific to the mod itself, and as such it's found both in clients and servers. This excludes all things mentioned above, and is the most rare kind of config, as, in general, it should not contain options related to the game experience.
If you're not used to networking jargon, you may think of the word client as local.
Server configs are specific to each world, not to each server, although this is a technical detail since most servers will only serve one world. This explains one of the needs for common configs. Sometimes it's needed to configure mod behavior at load time in the server side (such as how Simple Config wraps configuration files from other mods), but server configs cannot be loaded until the world is loaded, which is too late.
Config files are stored in different locations depending on their type:
-
Client configs are stored in your game directory, under the
configfolder. The game directory is usually the infamous%APPDATA%\.minecraftdirectory, unless you have defined multiple profiles with different game directories (you should give that a try, specially if you switch between different modpacks frequently). -
Server configs are stored in a folder inside the server directory. This folder is usually named
serverconfig, unless you have changed that yourself. However, even if they're stored in the server, all players receive a copy when they log in, since the game needs to know the world settings to properly display it locally. -
Common configs are stored in both previous locations, as both players and servers can have their own different common settings. They are differentiated from client and server files because they have a
-commonsuffix in their file names.
Simple Config menus let every player edit their own client and common configuration at any moment. Additionally, if authorized (see Config Permissions), certain players can also edit the server and common configuration of a server when logged in said server. By default, unauthorized players will be able to see the server configuration on the menu as read-only, but it is possible to hide it (as a hint that they shouldn't care, players still receive the server config and could read it with a custom mod).
In singleplayer worlds you can also edit the server configuration if you have cheats enabled or authorize yourself. When playing in singleplayer mode, your client also acts as a server, and as such, there's only one common config.