Minecraft OP Permission Levels Explained
What each OP level (1-4) can do, how to assign them, and security best practices.
How to OP a Player
There are three ways to give a player operator status:
Via the Settings tab: Settings > Player Management > "Admins / Operators" > Add Admin. Enter the player's name or UUID and pick a level from the dropdown. This is the easiest method on GameGrid and it writes ops.json for you.
Via console: type op PlayerName in the Console tab. The player gets the level from op-permission-level in Settings (default 4).
Via ops.json: edit ops.json in the server root from the Files tab, with the server stopped. Restart afterwards.
The panel's level dropdown is labelled Level 1 (Basic), Level 2 (Commands), Level 3 (Multiplayer) and Level 4 (Full Admin) - the same four levels described below.
The Four Permission Levels
Level 1 (Basic): bypass spawn protection. Good for trusted builders who only need to work near spawn.
Level 2 (Commands): Level 1 plus the single-player cheat commands - /clear, /difficulty, /effect, /gamemode, /gamerule, /give, /summon, /setblock, /fill, /clone, /tp, /time, /weather - and command blocks. Good for event coordinators.
Level 3 (Multiplayer): Level 2 plus the player-management commands - /ban, /ban-ip, /pardon, /kick, /op, /deop, /whitelist. Good for administrators who moderate people.
Level 4 (Full Admin): Level 3 plus /stop, /save-all, /save-on and /save-off. Full control. This is what op-permission-level defaults to, so a plain "op PlayerName" grants it. Give it only to people you fully trust.
Setting Specific Levels
op-permission-level in Settings (default 4, range 1-4) controls what level a new op gets. Lower it if you do not want every op to have full control.
To assign different levels to different players, pick the level from the dropdown when you add each one in Settings > Player Management > "Admins / Operators". To change the level of someone already listed, remove them and add them again, or edit ops.json with the server stopped. Each entry has a "level" field:
{"uuid": "player-uuid", "name": "PlayerName", "level": 2}
You can also use the console: op PlayerName gives the default level. To change a specific player's level, deop them first (deop PlayerName - the Console tab takes no leading slash), then edit ops.json and restart.
Security Best Practices
Don't OP people you don't trust. Level 4 ops can stop the server, delete worlds, and ban everyone.
Use lower levels for moderators. Level 1 or 2 is enough for most community helpers.
Only give Level 4 to one or two people you trust completely - ideally just yourself.
If an op goes rogue, deop them immediately from the Console tab: deop PlayerName. Then check what they did - ops can't be undone automatically.
Keep the number of ops small. More ops means more people who can accidentally (or intentionally) break things.