How to Download & Install Fabric for Minecraft Client & Server (2026)

A guide on how to download, install, and run Fabric for both the Minecraft client and server. This guide includes instructions for using the GUI installer and command-line method.

Fabric is a lightweight and modular modding platform for Minecraft that allows players to easily install and manage mods. It is designed to be fast, efficient, and compatible with a wide range of mods, making it a popular choice among Minecraft modders and players alike.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Downloading
  • Client Download
  • Server Download
• Installing
  • Client
    • Through the GUI Installer
    • Through the Command Line (Linux/PowerShell)
  • Server
    • Through the GUI Installer
    • Through the Command Line (Linux/PowerShell)
• Running
  • Client
  • Server
• Notes
  • Fabric API Mod (Recommended)
  • Using Screen (Linux)
• See Also
• Conclusion

Requirements

• A computer running Windows 10 (or later) or Server, or Linux.
• At least 1 - 2 GBs of free storage space.
• If you're using a hosting provider for your server, make sure they support modded servers and allow you to upload custom files.
• Java
  • Download From: Adoptium or Oracle

Downloading

The first thing you'll want to do is download the Fabric installer. This process is fairly simple, but there is a separate server installer that makes the setup process easier for server owners. Therefore, we'll go over both the client and server download process in this section.

Client Download

Download the generic installer from their website here.

• On Windows: You can download the .exe installer. Click the Download for Windows button.
• On Linux/Mac: You should download the the universal JAR installer.
• NOTE: The JAR installer can be used on Windows as well!

On Windows, your file explorer should look like this, with a file named something like fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar.

Server Download

For the server, you can either download the generic installer above, or you can download the server launcher JAR directly which will make things quicker.

We will be downloading the server launcher JAR directly:

1. Go to the Fabric Server Launcher page.
2. Ensure you select the correct Minecraft Version (1).
3. Select the correct Loader Version (2) and Installer Version (2) settings.
   • Fabric Loader Version (2): This is the version of the Fabric Loader that will be installed. In most cases, you can leave this as default (latest).
   • Installer Version (2): This is the version of the installer that will be downloaded. In most cases, you can leave this as default (latest).
4. Click the Executable Server (.jar) button (3) to download the server launcher JAR file.
   

Now save the JAR file to the location where you want to run your server. For example, you may want to create a new folder called fabric-server and save the JAR file there.

Installing

Installing the Fabric client or server is a straightforward process that can be done through the GUI installer or the command line. Below are the instructions for both methods.

Client

Through the GUI Installer

1. Open up the Fabric installer by double-clicking the executable or JAR file you downloaded.
   • If it doesn't open, you may need to right-click the file, select Open with, and choose Java or Java(TM) Platform SE binary from the list of applications.
2. Ensure the Client tab is selected at the top-left corner of the installer.
3. If necessary, change the Minecraft and Loader versions (1) to whatever you want to install. By default, it should be set to the latest version of Minecraft and Fabric Loader.
4. If necessary, change the Launcher Location (2) to the location of your Minecraft installation.
   • By default, this should point to the correct location.
5. Ensure the Create profile option is checked if you want the installer to create a new profile for you in the Minecraft Launcher.
   • This is recommended to keep things organized, but you can uncheck it if you want to manually create a profile later.
6. Click the Install button (3) to start the installation process.
   

Through the Command Line (Linux/PowerShell)

Installing the client through the command line is a bit more complex, but may be preferred or necessary for some users. Below are the instructions for installing the Fabric client using the command line.

Before continuing, here are the flags you can pass to the install command to specify what you want to install:

Supported values for {LAUNCHER} are:

• win32 - The default Minecraft Launcher on Windows.
• microsoft_store - The Minecraft Launcher from the Microsoft Store on Windows.

You may also pass default to the versions to use the default values (or just omit the flag(s)), which will be the latest versions at the time of installation.

Now let's go over the installation process:

1. Open your terminal (Linux) or PowerShell (Windows).
   • On Windows, you can right-click in the folder where the installer is located and select Open in Terminal or Open in PowerShell to quickly navigate to the correct directory.
2. Navigate to the directory where the Fabric installer JAR file is located using the cd command.
   • For example:
     • Windows: cd C:\Users\{USER}\Downloads
     • Linux: cd /home/{USER}/Downloads
3. Run the installer using the following command:

   # On Windows
   java -jar .\fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar client {FLAGS}
   
   # On Linux
   java -jar ./fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar client {FLAGS}
   

   • Replace {VERSION} with the actual version number of the installer you downloaded.
   • Replace {FLAGS} with the appropriate flags based on what you want to install and any specific versions or launcher you want to use.
     • Example:

     java -jar .\fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar client -mcversion 26.1.2 -loader default -launcher win32
     

This will run the installer with the specified options and install Fabric for your Minecraft client.

Server

Through the GUI Installer

If you've downloaded the server launcher directly, all you need to do is double-click the JAR file you downloaded and it will automatically set up and start the server in the directory you ran the installer from.

I personally like renaming the JAR file to something like fabric-server-launch.jar to make it more organized since the generic file name is quite long.

If you're looking to run the installer through the CLI, skip to the next section below.

Through the Command Line (Linux/PowerShell)

If you've downloaded the generic installer, you can use steps from the client installation section above, but use different arguments instead.

With that said, replace the client argument in the command with server. For example:

# On Windows
java -jar .\fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar server {FLAGS}

# On Linux
java -jar ./fabric-installer-{VERSION}.jar server {FLAGS}

On Linux, here's an example of how to run the installer with specific flags:

java -jar ./fabric-installer-1.1.1.jar server -dir ./fabric_test01 -mcversion 26.1.2 -downloadMinecraft

Running

You can now start the client or server with Fabric installed. The process for running the client and server is different, so we'll go over both separately.

Client

Simply open the Minecraft Launcher and select the profile that was created during the installation process (if you left the "Create profile" option checked).

The name of this profile is likely something like fabric-loader-{VERSION}. You can change this name in the Minecraft Launcher if you want to rename it to something more user-friendly.

After loading into a new world, you can confirm if Fabric is installed by pressing the F3 key to open the debug screen. Towards the top-right, you should see a line that shows what version of Minecraft you're running along with the Fabric version in parentheses.

For example, it may say something like Minecraft 26.1.2 (fabric-loader-{version}/fabric).

Server

To make things easier, we're going to be making a simple wrapper script that will run the server and automatically restart it if it crashes or stops. This is especially useful for servers that are running mods, as they can be more prone to crashing.

With that said, below ${JAR_FILE} and %JAR_FILE% refers to the name of the server launcher JAR file that you downloaded in the steps above (e.g. fabric-server-launch.jar). You can also replace the JAR_FILE environment variable with the actual file name in the scripts if you prefer. Otherwise, ensure to replace the JAR_FILE variable with the correct file name before running the scripts.

Windows Wrapper Script

On Windows, we'll be creating a Batch script called start-server.bat with the following contents:

@echo off

:start

title Minecraft Fabric Server (Auto-Restart)

echo Starting Minecraft Fabric Server...

echo Using JAR file: %JAR_FILE%...

:: Replace %JAR_FILE% with the name of your Fabric server JAR file
:: Remove the "nogui" argument if you want to run the server with the GUI (not recommended for performance reasons)
:: You can also adjust the memory allocation (Xmx and Xms) as needed for your server.
java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar %JAR_FILE% nogui

echo.

echo Server stopped or crashed! Restarting in 10 seconds...
echo Press Ctrl+C to cancel the auto-restart loop.

timeout /t 10

goto start

• You can either replace the %JAR_FILE% variable with the actual file name of your server launcher JAR (e.g. fabric-server-launch.jar), or you can set the JAR_FILE environment variable in your system settings to point to the correct file.
• Remove the nogui argument if you want to run the server with the GUI, but keep in mind that running with the GUI can cause performance issues and is generally not recommended for servers.

To start the server, you can simply double-click the new script through the file explorer. Otherwise, you can run the script through PowerShell. If you need to set the JAR_FILE environment variable, you can do so in PowerShell before running the script.

Here's an example of how to set the JAR_FILE environment variable in PowerShell and then running the server.

$env:JAR_FILE = "fabric-server-launch.jar"
.\start-server.bat

Here's an example of what the server console (GUI) will look like when running with the wrapper script on Windows:

Linux Wrapper Script

On Linux, we'll be creating a Bash script called start-server.sh with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash

while true; do
    echo "Starting Minecraft Fabric Server..."
    echo "Using JAR file: ${JAR_FILE}..."
    echo "Press Ctrl+C to stop the server and exit the auto-restart loop."
    echo "---------------------------------------------"

    # Replace $JAR_FILE with the name of your Fabric server JAR file
    # Remove the "nogui" argument if you want to run the server with the GUI (not recommended for performance reasons)
    # You can also adjust the memory allocation flags (-Xmx and -Xms) as needed for your server's performance requirements
    java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar ${JAR_FILE} nogui

    echo "Server stopped or crashed! Restarting in 10 seconds..."
    sleep 10
done

• You can either replace the ${JAR_FILE} variable with the actual file name of your server launcher JAR (e.g. fabric-server-launch.jar), or you can set the JAR_FILE environment variable in your system settings to point to the correct file.
• Remove the nogui argument if you want to run the server with the GUI, but keep in mind that running with the GUI can cause performance issues and is generally not recommended for servers.

To start the server, you can run the script through the terminal. If you need to set the JAR_FILE environment variable, you can do so in the terminal before running the script.

export JAR_FILE="fabric-server-launch.jar"
./start-server.sh

After creating the script using a command line nano start-server.sh or through a text editor, ensure to give the script user execute permissions with chmod u+x start-server.sh before running it.

Notes

Fabric API Mod (Recommended)

There are many mods that require the Fabric API mod to run properly.

If you are looking to install mods that require the Fabric API, you can download it from CurseForge and place the JAR file in your mods folder for both the client and server.

Using Screen (Linux)

If you're running your server on Linux, you can use the screen command to run your server in a detachable session. This allows you to start the server, detach from the session, and keep it running in the background even if you close your terminal.

You can start the server using screen with the automatic restart script above like this:

screen -S mc-fabric ./start_server.sh

If you'd like to detach from the screen session while keeping the server running, you can press Ctrl+A followed by D. To reattach to the session later, use:

screen -r mc-fabric

NOTE: If only one session is running, you can simply use screen -r to reattach without specifying the session name.

See Also

• Fabric Website
• Fabric GitHub
• Pterodactyl - A popular, free, and open source game server control panel that allows you to easily manage your self-hosted Minecraft servers (with Fabric support!).

Conclusion

Fabric is a fantastic modding platform that has powered the Minecraft modding scene for many years. Whether you're looking to install it for your client or set up a modded server, the installation process is straightforward and can be done through either a GUI installer or the command line. With Fabric, you can enjoy a wide variety of mods and custom content in Minecraft.

If you have any questions or are looking for a modding community to be a part of, consider joining our Discord server!

Guides we create are always open to edits and improvements, so if you have any suggestions or notice any issues, feel free to contribute by creating a pull request on our GitHub repository!

Happy modding!