How to change a player's game mode

You can switch any player between Survival, Creative, Adventure and Spectator at any time with a command. No restart needed and it takes effect instantly.

The command

From the Console, or in game as an operator with a / in front:

gamemode creative PlayerName
gamemode survival PlayerName
gamemode adventure PlayerName
gamemode spectator PlayerName

Leave the name off in game to change your own: /gamemode creative.

What each one does

• Survival is the normal game: health, hunger, and blocks take time to break.
• Creative gives unlimited blocks, flight and instant breaking. Players cannot take damage.
• Adventure lets players walk around and use things, but they cannot break blocks except with the right tool. This is what you want for adventure maps, hubs and spawn areas.
• Spectator makes the player invisible and lets them fly through blocks. They cannot interact with anything. Useful for watching without being seen.

Setting the default for new players

The commands above change one player right now. To set what everybody starts in, change the default game mode instead: see How to change the default game mode.

Notes

• You need to be an operator to run this. See Make yourself a server operator.
• From the Console there is no / and no player context, so you must always include the player name.
• @a targets everyone, so gamemode adventure @a switches the whole server at once.
• A player's game mode is saved with them and persists across rejoins.