What Is GameMode Inventories?
Keeping your Survival and Creative inventories separate is a common challenge on multiplayer servers. Without a proper tool, switching game modes can lead to lost items, accidental griefing, or players carrying overpowered Creative gear into Survival worlds. GameMode Inventories solves this by automatically saving and swapping inventories, armor, experience, and even Ender Chest contents whenever a player changes game mode. It is a lightweight but powerful Spigot/Paper plugin designed to give server owners complete control over how inventories behave across Creative, Survival, and Adventure modes.
Core Features That Make It Essential
The plugin goes far beyond simple inventory separation. Every aspect is configurable, so you can tailor the experience exactly to your server’s needs. Here are the standout capabilities:
Seamless Game Mode Switching
- Automatically saves your current inventory, armor, and XP when you change modes.
- Restores the corresponding saved set for the new mode instantly.
- Works with Creative, Survival, and Adventure modes.
Death Handling and Persistence
- Optional save and restore of inventories on player death, preventing item loss during accidental deaths in Creative or maintaining fairness in Survival.
- All settings can be toggled per world or globally.
Creative Mode Restrictions
To prevent abuse, GameMode Inventories includes a robust set of limitations that can be enabled with a single config line:
- Block opening inventories like Chests, Ender Chests, Enchantment Tables, Anvils, Furnaces, and Dispensers while in Creative.
- Disable item dropping and item pickup in Creative, so players cannot litter the world or smuggle items.
- Track blocks placed in Creative and either make them unbreakable or allow breaking without drops — pistons can also be prevented from moving them.
- Prevent falling blocks like anvils, gravel, and sand from dropping items.
- Stop bedrock breaking in Creative below a configurable Y level.
- Blacklist specific blocks that cannot be placed in Creative (e.g., TNT, Lava Buckets).
- Blacklist commands that cannot be used while in Creative mode.
Additional Quality-of-Life Options
- Remove all potion effects when switching from Creative to Survival to avoid lingering flight or buffs.
- Preserve custom item attributes during inventory swaps.
- Turn off chat spam from the plugin when using restrictive features.
- Localize all messages via a simple messages.yml file.
- Optional MySQL support for large servers with heavy database loads.
How It Works
Installation is straightforward: place the GameModeInventories.jar file into your server’s plugins folder and restart. A default config file is generated automatically, and the plugin begins working immediately. When a player uses /gamemode or any other mode-switching method, their current state is stored and the new mode’s saved inventory takes its place. Everything happens in the background without any extra commands needed from players.
For those who prefer a streamlined experience, the plugin can be easily installed via the foxygame.net launcher — a convenient, flexible, and modern Minecraft launcher where you can download mods right from the menu, making setup a breeze. This is especially helpful if you manage multiple servers or want to keep your plugins updated without manual file transfers.
Configuration and Commands
Every feature is controlled through a well-documented config.yml. You can toggle options like save_on_death, xp, armor, enderchest, restrict_creative, no_drops, track_creative_place, and many more. A blacklist system lets you specify exact block materials and commands to restrict. The plugin also provides in-game commands for live toggling, with full tab completion:
/gmi save_on_death/gmi restrict_creative/gmi track_creative_place/gmi break_bedrock/gmi bypass.inventories- And many more — all configurable on the fly.
Permissions and Bypass System
Four permission nodes give you granular control over who gets separate inventories and who can bypass restrictions. The gamemodeinventories.bypass permission can be fine-tuned to allow specific staff members to open inventories, drop items, or use blacklisted commands even in Creative. Starting with version 2.5.4, you can set bypass options individually for inventories, items, blacklist, survival mode, and commands — if any are set to false, even OPs cannot override them.
Performance Considerations
Because the plugin can track every Creative-placed block when track_creative_place is enabled, it does consume server resources. The developer recommends using MySQL instead of SQLite for large servers to handle the load. If you run many heavyweight plugins, consider whether you truly need all Creative restriction features or if a dedicated Creative world would be a better fit. The plugin is transparent about its resource usage, and you can always disable the more demanding options if performance becomes an issue.
Why GameMode Inventories Stands Out
Unlike general-purpose Creative control plugins, GameMode Inventories focuses specifically on inventory management and is not trying to be an all-in-one solution. It was created in response to a community request and has been actively maintained with open-source code on GitHub. Development builds are available from the TARDIS Jenkins server for those who want the latest features before official releases. The plugin has also been featured in Curse's Minecraft Spotlights, highlighting its reliability and usefulness.
Conclusion
If your server allows players to switch between game modes, GameMode Inventories is an indispensable tool. It eliminates inventory chaos, prevents item smuggling, and gives you fine-grained control over what can and cannot be done in Creative. The extensive configuration options, live command toggles, and permission-based bypasses make it suitable for everything from small private servers to large public networks. Whether you want to keep Survival and Creative completely isolated or just add a few sensible restrictions, this plugin delivers exactly what you need with minimal overhead.