AFK Warden

What it does #

AFK Warden finds the players who are really away from the keyboard. Whether they simply walked away or left a farm, a vehicle or a macro running in their place, they are marked AFK, warned and kicked on the timers you set. Players who are actually playing never notice it is there.

• Catches the real AFK

  Players who walk away from the keyboard are marked AFK, warned and then kicked on the timers you set, so their slots go to players who are actually playing.

• Not fooled by AFK farms

  AFK pools, water and bubble-column machines, minecart loops and other vehicles, auto-clickers, stuck keys and macros do not keep a player counted as active.

• Fair to real players

  A warning with the time left, in chat and on screen, always comes before a kick, and the AFK mark clears as soon as the player is back. You can also only mark players and never kick anyone.

• Relogging gains nothing

  A player who leaves and joins again keeps their idle time, so reconnect tricks do not help, and nobody is kicked in their first minute after joining.

• Timers per rank

  With LuckPerms, give a rank longer timers or let it bypass the plugin entirely. Free covers one rank; Pro covers as many as you need.

• Works with EssentialsX

  The AFK status reaches the tab list, sleeping and item pickup through EssentialsX, and a player's own /afk is never overridden.

• Placeholders

  PlaceholderAPI placeholders for scoreboards and tab lists: whether a player is AFK, their idle time, how many players are AFK and the rank that applies.

• Your words, your colours

  Every message is editable, in English and Spanish, with MiniMessage colours and gradients. An empty message is turned off, and your own console commands can run before each kick.

• One jar, no setup

  Spigot, Paper and their forks, Minecraft 1.16.5 to 26.3, Java 8 or newer. No database to install and sensible defaults from the first start.

Who it is for #

Owners of Spigot and Paper servers who want to:

• free the slots taken by players who are not there;
• stop AFK farms, auto-clickers and macros from keeping players online around the clock;
• give some ranks longer timers, or none at all, without another plugin;
• show the AFK status in the tab list, on scoreboards and through EssentialsX.

What players see #

With the default timers:

As soon as the player is back, the AFK mark is cleared and everyone is told. The warning always comes before a kick, even right after you shorten the timers. Every timer is yours to change, and kick-after: 0 only marks players, never kicks them.

Free and Pro #

Everything AFK Warden does is the same in both tiers. The only difference is how many LuckPerms ranks can have their own timers: Free gives one rank its own settings on top of the global ones, and Pro has no limit.

If Pro ends, nothing is deleted: the first entry of ranks in config.yml keeps applying, the console names the others, and they apply again as soon as Pro is back. See Licensing.

Pricing #

Prices are in US dollars. Polar, our merchant of record, adds sales tax or VAT for your country at checkout. Each key works on one server at a time. Details in Licensing and payment.

Requirements #

Server software

Spigot or Paper, and their forks such as Purpur. Folia is not supported.

Minecraft

1.16.5 – 26.3, one jar for every version

Java

8 or newer

Storage

Nothing to set up: its settings, messages and a few small state files live in plugins/AFKWarden/.

Optional

LuckPerms (timers per rank), EssentialsX 2.18 or newer (tab-list AFK marker, sleeping and item pickup), PlaceholderAPI (placeholders).

Network

A Pro store key is checked with Polar over HTTPS (api.polar.sh). The update check asks Modrinth once a day for a newer release, and an anonymous usage report (versions and player counts) goes to coolapps.fyi once an hour; update-check: false and telemetry.enabled: false turn them off.

Get started #

1. Download AFKWarden-1.0.0.jar (see Install), put it in your server's plugins/ folder and restart the server.
2. For the first few days, set kick-after: 0 in plugins/AFKWarden/config.yml and run /afkwarden reload: players are only marked AFK, and /afkwarden list shows who.
3. Set the kick timer you want, give your staff afkwarden.bypass if they should never be kicked, and add timers per rank if you use LuckPerms.

The install guide covers the details, including the EssentialsX settings that let both plugins agree.

Support #

Write to [email protected]; the support page lists what to include. Answers to common questions are in the FAQ.