Set up TAB on your Minecraft server

TAB is a plugin that controls the player list you see when you hold the Tab key, the text above players' heads and, if you switch it on, a sidebar scoreboard. It runs only on the server, so your players install nothing.

Checked against TAB 6.2.1, listed on Modrinth for Paper 26.3, October 2026.

What you need

• A Paper or Purpur server. Those show a Plugins tab under Content in the panel menu. Install Minecraft plugins on Paper or Purpur covers the basics.
• Nothing else is required. TAB can read groups and prefixes from LuckPerms or a Vault permission plugin, and can use PlaceholderAPI placeholders, but it starts without them. See Set up LuckPerms on your Minecraft server and Set up PlaceholderAPI on your Minecraft server if you want them.

Install TAB

1. Open the Plugins tab and keep Modrinth selected in the source chip row at the top of the tab.
2. Search for TAB and find the listing named TAB with the line "An all-in-one solution that works". The version filter starts on your server's Minecraft version, so the store offers the build that matches it.
3. Click Install.
4. Open Console and click Restart. Plugins load only at startup.

On first start TAB creates a plugins/TAB folder. The files you will edit are config.yml, groups.yml and users.yml.

Change the header and footer

The default config already shows a header above the player list and a footer below it. Open File Manager, go to plugins/TAB, open config.yml and find the header-footer section. Each design has a header and a footer, which are lists of lines:

header-footer:
  enabled: true
  designs:
    default:
      header:
        - "&3&lMy server"
        - "&7Online players: &f%online%"
      footer:
        - "&7Ping: %ping%"

Click Save, then run tab reload in the Console. The command unloads TAB, reads its files again and loads it, so you do not need a restart.

Set prefixes for each group

Prefixes and suffixes live in groups.yml. A group name matches a group in your permission plugin:

admin:
  tabprefix: "&4&lAdmin &r"

In game, the command /tab group admin tabprefix "&4&lAdmin &r" sets the same value. Use tabprefix for the player list and tagprefix for the name above the head. The _DEFAULT_ entry applies to everyone whose group has no value of its own, and the file that ships with TAB points it at %luckperms-prefix%, so installed LuckPerms prefixes show without more work.

Players are sorted by the sorting-types list in config.yml. It starts with GROUPS:owner,admin,mod,helper,builder,vip,default, so rename those to your own group names.

Commands and permissions

• tab reload reloads the files. Permission tab.reload.
• tab groups lists every group that has settings, and tab group <group> shows one group's settings.
• tab parse <player> <text> replaces placeholders in the text, which tests whether one works.
• tab dump <player> makes a detailed report for troubleshooting, uploads it to a paste site and shows you the link. Permission tab.dump.
• tab.admin allows every command. Operators have it by default.

The sidebar scoreboard and bossbar are off by default. Set enabled: true under scoreboard or bossbar in config.yml, then reload.

Common problems

• A prefix does not show. Check the group name in groups.yml matches your permission plugin exactly. Run tab dump <player>, open the link it prints and read permissionGroup in the player info to see the group TAB found.
• Nothing changed after saving. Reload TAB as shown above.
• Updating. Take a backup in Backups, then open Installed in the Plugins tab and click Check for updates. TAB converts its own config files to a newer format. Going back to an older version is not supported.