I still remember the first time I hosted a Palworld server for my college friend group. We spent 3 days building a massive base and breeding a full roster of legendary Pals, only to have a random stranger join (we forgot to set a join password) and delete half our builds while we were offline. That mess would’ve been even worse if they’d gotten admin access, which is why I now make setting an admin password the very first thing I do when spinning up a new server. Learning how to set admin password Palworld server settings isn’t just for big public servers either—it’s a quick, simple step that keeps your private world safe even if you only play with a small group of friends. I’ve set up over a dozen Palworld servers for my own friend group and small community servers, and I’ve seen first-hand how skipping this small step can lead to hours of lost progress and frustration. This guide walks you through every part of the process, no advanced coding or server management experience required.
How to Set Admin Password Palworld for Dedicated Servers
The process for setting your admin password changes slightly depending on if you’re running a self-hosted dedicated server or using a third-party hosting provider, but both take less than 5 minutes to complete. For self-hosted servers running through SteamCMD or the official Palworld dedicated server tool, you’ll need to edit the game’s config file directly. You can find this file at Steam/steamapps/common/PalServer/Pal/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/PalWorldSettings.ini for Windows devices, or the corresponding Linux folder if you’re running a server on a Linux machine. Open the file with any plain text editor like Notepad, then find the line that reads AdminPassword="".
Type your desired password between the two quotation marks, then save the file and close it. Don’t use spaces or special characters that aren’t alphanumeric for your password, as the game frequently glitches with symbols like exclamation marks or dollar signs. I once tried to use a password with an @ symbol for a community server, and half the admins couldn’t log in for 2 days until I realized the special character was the issue. If you’re using a third-party hosting provider like G-Portal or Shockbyte, you don’t have to edit the config file manually. Most hosts have a dedicated field for admin passwords in their server dashboard—just paste your desired password into that field, hit save, and restart your server for changes to take effect. If you’re worried about messing up the config file, make a copy of it before you make any changes. That way if you accidentally delete a line or change the wrong setting, you can just revert to the original copy and start over.
How to Access Admin Controls Once Your Password Is Set
Once you’ve set your admin password and restarted your server, logging in as an admin in-game is straightforward. Join your server as you normally would, then hit Enter to open the chat box. Type /AdminPassword [yourpassword] (replacing [yourpassword] with the actual password you set) and hit Enter again. You’ll get a small pop-up notification in the corner of your screen confirming you’re now logged in as an admin, and you’ll have access to all admin commands like kicking players, spawning items, or restarting the server mid-session.
If you’re hosting a local co-op world directly from your game client instead of a dedicated server, the setup process is even simpler. Open your world settings before you launch the co-op session, then scroll down to the admin password field to set your desired password. Anyone joining your co-op game who wants admin access can enter the same command in chat to get permissions. Never share your admin password with anyone you don’t fully trust—even friends might accidentally wipe your base or delete Pals if they don’t know how admin commands work. I recommend only giving admin access to 2 or 3 trusted people per server, even if you have a larger player base, to reduce the risk of accidental damage.
Common Issues When Setting Your Palworld Admin Password (And How to Fix Them)
Even if you follow all the steps correctly, you might run into snags when setting or using your admin password. I’ve dealt with every single one of these issues while managing community servers, so these fixes will work for 99% of cases:
- Password changes don’t take effect: This is almost always because you didn’t fully shut down and restart your server. Even if you hit "save settings" on your host dashboard, many hosts require a full restart to apply changes to config files. Make sure you wait 2-3 minutes after restart before testing the new password, since servers take time to fully boot up and load all settings.
- Correct password doesn’t let you log in: If you’re 100% sure you entered the right password, check your config file for extra spaces before or after the password in the quotation marks. Even a single space at the end of the password line will make the game read it as part of the password, so you’ll get a login error every time. Delete any extra spaces, save the file, and restart the server again.
- Other admins can’t log in even with the right password: First, confirm they’re entering the command correctly, with no typos. If that’s not the issue, check if your server has a player whitelist enabled. Some whitelist setups block admin access for players who aren’t added to the whitelist first, so add their Steam ID to the whitelist before they try to log in as admin.
- You forgot your existing admin password: No panic here. Just go back to your PalWorldSettings.ini file or your host dashboard, reset the password to something new, restart the server, and use the new password to log in. You don’t have to wipe your world or any existing progress to reset an admin password.
One other common mistake I see all the time is people mixing up capitalization when entering their password. Your admin password is case-sensitive, so if you set it to PalPass123, entering palpass123 won’t work. Double check capitalization if you’re getting login errors even with no obvious typos. If you’re still having trouble, try resetting the password to a simple 8-character alphanumeric string to test if the issue is with the password itself or your server settings.
Best Practices to Keep Your Palworld Server Secure With Admin Passwords
Setting your admin password is just the first step to keeping your server safe. There are a few simple habits you can build to make sure your world stays protected from griefers and unauthorized access, no matter if you run a small private server or a large public community server. First, Use a unique password that you don’t use for any other accounts. Even if you only play with close friends, reusing passwords puts you at risk if any of their accounts are compromised. I recommend an 8-12 character mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers, no personal info like your gamer tag or birthday.
Second, change your admin password every 3-6 months, especially if you have multiple admins or run a public server. If someone leaves your friend group or stops playing on the server, change the password immediately to cut off their access. I also recommend changing the password if you ever accidentally type it in public chat, which is a way more common mistake than you might think. I’ve seen this happen twice on servers I modded, and the only fix was to reset the password immediately before someone could use it to grief.
Third, consider setting a separate player join password in addition to your admin password for private servers. That way, random people can’t join your server at all unless you give them the join password, which adds an extra layer of protection even if someone gets their hands on your admin password. For public servers, you can skip the join password, but make sure you have a clear set of rules and active admins to monitor for bad behavior. You don’t need 10 admins for a 20-player server—2 or 3 trusted people who can log in a few times a week to handle reports and server restarts is more than enough.
Setting up a Palworld server with your friends is one of the best ways to experience the game, and locking down admin access is a small step that saves you a ton of headache down the line. Learning how to set admin password Palworld server settings takes less than 5 minutes even for first-time server hosts, and the tips we covered above will help you avoid all the common mistakes that trip people up. Whether you’re running a small private server for 3 friends or a public server for hundreds of players, taking the time to set and secure your admin password means you can spend less time troubleshooting and more time catching Pals and building your dream base. If you run into any issues we didn’t cover, drop a comment below and I’ll help you work through it.