Proximity voice on your Minecraft server — hear friends by distance, on PC, iPhone and Android

Friend groups on one Minecraft server usually talk on Discord, where everyone sounds equally loud wherever they stand. Proximity voice changes that: a player next to you is loud, a player far away is quiet, and you hear them from the side they stand on. This page covers which servers it works on, how to turn it on, how players join from Java and from Bedrock, the three voice levels, the two voice mods it bridges, and what to check when something does not connect.

Who it works for

Voice works on Endstone, on the Paper family (with Bedrock players through Geyser), and on Velocity networks.

On a Minecraft server of a type voice does not cover, the Proximity voice section in Settings says so instead of showing a switch. Other games have no voice section.

Velocity networks. The owner sets voice once on the proxy's page and it applies to every server in the network. A player types /uniz:vc once and keeps voice while moving between the servers. Players hear only others on the same server, because each is a separate world, and a Fabric or Quilt server in a network has no voice while the others do. A Bedrock player on a server in the network gets typed commands instead of a pop-up menu, covered below.

Turn it on (server owner)

Turn voice on in the server's Settings

Open the server, go to Settings, find the Proximity voice section in the Connection group and switch it on. The owner can do this, and so can a team member who holds the Settings permission. It is off by default and free, and a change applies at once with no restart. One exception: a server that has not restarted since voice arrived still runs the older in-game link. The section says so and offers a restart button; after one restart /uniz:vc works.

You can also set:

• Maximum range, 8 to 96 blocks, default 48. Players pick their own level up to this.
• Voice quality, 8 to 96 kbps, default 64. Above 64 can hurt players with a poor connection.
• Dead and spectator players: normal, listen only, or muted.
• Shortcut item and talk icon, both on by default. Turn them off on minigame servers or others that manage inventories or name tags.
• Give everyone the item on join, off by default. Every player gets the shortcut item as they join, so tapping it gives them the voice link without knowing the command. It works only while the shortcut item is on.
• Who is in voice now, with mute and ban buttons.

Join from the game

Type /uniz:vc in the game chat

Every player types /uniz:vc. What happens next depends on the edition.

Open the link on Java, or enter the code on Bedrock

The first time you open the voice page on a device, from the link or directly, it shows a short notice before anything else. It says that your voice goes live to nearby players, that uniz.host does not record it, that other players may record you, and that headphones work best. Accept it once per device.

• Java (PC). The game prints a link in chat. Click it. No code is needed, and the link works for 30 minutes.
• Bedrock on Endstone. Bedrock cannot click links in chat. Open voice.uniz.host in a browser on the phone or PC, or in the Android app. On your first visit, accepting the notice starts the code at once; on later visits, tap "Tap to get your code". Either tap also allows the microphone. The page shows a code such as K7QM-2XPA and the exact line to type. Type /uniz:vc K7QM-2XPA in Minecraft. Capitals, spaces and the dash do not matter. The page then connects by itself, so you do not have to go back to it, which matters on phones, where leaving Minecraft drops you from the game. The Android app works the same way.
• Bedrock through Geyser on a Paper-family server. The game cannot always tell a Geyser player from a Java player, so its reply carries both the link and the code instructions.

A code works once and expires after 30 minutes; the page replaces it by itself.

Check your name and allow the microphone

On Java, the page asks you to confirm the player and the server it joins as. Confirm only if you clicked the link yourself, and allow the microphone when the browser asks. On Bedrock there is no confirm step: the page has already connected and shows the name it joined as. If it shows someone else's name, someone else typed your code: press leave and get a new code.

Switch back to Minecraft and talk

Voice keeps running while Minecraft is in front. The page has a microphone meter, a sensitivity slider so fan and keyboard noise are not sent, and a self-mute button. Closing the page, leaving the server or the server stopping ends the session.

What you hear

You hear a player only while you are inside their own range, in the same world and dimension. Volume falls with distance, and the sound comes from the side the speaker stands on, relative to where you face. The page lists the people who are talking near you.

The three levels

Each player chooses how far their own voice carries. The owner's range is the ceiling.

A small maximum squeezes the levels together without swapping their order: at a maximum of 8 all three are 8 blocks, at 12 they are 8, 8 and 12.

To change level without leaving Minecraft, type /uniz:vc while you are already in voice:

• Endstone: a form with the three levels, mic off, the shortcut item and leave.
• Bedrock through Geyser on a standalone server: the same form.
• Bedrock on a server in a Velocity network: typed commands, /uniz:vc whisper, /uniz:vc normal or /uniz:vc shout, because those servers have no form.
• Java: clickable chat buttons.

The voice page and the app carry the same three buttons, and a change in either place shows in the other.

The shortcut item

The menu offers a shortcut item. Pick "get the shortcut item" and one item lands in your inventory. Tap or use it and the same quick menu opens.

• You cannot drop it, and it stays through death.
• You cannot put it in a chest, hopper, item frame, crafting grid or trade.
• It does nothing else in the game, and a renamed look-alike does nothing.
• It disappears when you leave voice, unless the owner gives everyone the item on join (below). It disappears from everyone when the owner turns voice off. /uniz:vc gives it back.

When the owner switches on Give everyone the item on join, every player gets the item as they join, even before they join voice, and keeps it after leaving voice. Tap it while not in voice and you see the voice link (on Bedrock, how to open voice.uniz.host and type the code it shows in game) with a Remove item button (Remove shortcut item on Bedrock). A removed item comes back the next time you join the server, and also when voice restarts or reconnects to the server; type /uniz:vc and pick Get shortcut item to have it back sooner. A Bedrock player without forms types /uniz:vc item to remove it or get it back. Players who use Simple Voice Chat or Plasmo Voice do not get the item.

Mute, ban and the talk icon

• Mute one player for yourself. On the voice page or in the app, press mute beside a player in the list. The server stops sending you that voice entirely, so it is not just turned down, and it holds for the session. Each player also has a volume control. This lives on the page and the app, not in the in-game menu.
• Owner mute. The owner, or a team member with the Settings permission, can mute a player for a set time from the live list in Settings. A muted player still hears everyone, but nobody hears them.
• Owner ban. The owner, or a team member with the Settings permission, can ban a player from voice until unbanned. Their session ends, and /uniz:vc tells them voice is suspended for them on this server. They can still play.
• Operators in game can use /uniz:vc mute, /uniz:vc ban and /uniz:vc unban with a player name. Type mute without a time and the game replies with the durations it accepts.
• The talk icon. While someone talks, nearby players see a small mark above their head. It hides while that player sneaks, like a name tag.

The Simple Voice Chat and Plasmo Voice bridges

On a Paper-family server that runs the mod's server plugin, players who already use Simple Voice Chat or Plasmo Voice can talk to players on the web page and the app, and the other way round, while voice is switched on for the server. Simple Voice Chat users and Plasmo Voice users hear each other too. A mod user does not type /uniz:vc. The owner only installs the mod's server plugin: each mod needs a UDP port of its own, and uniz.host opens one and sets it in the mod's config by itself.

• Installed from the Content tab: the port is opened and written into the config before the server's next start, so voice works from the first boot.
• Uploaded as a jar on a server that runs uniz-link, uniz.host's own plugin: once the server is running, uniz-link reports the mod within a few minutes, and the port is opened and handed to the mod while the server keeps running, with no restart.
• The port shows in the Extra ports card under "Already open", as "Voice chat (Simple Voice Chat)" or "Voice chat (Plasmo Voice)". It does not count against your 5 extra ports, and each installed mod gets one.
• If you had already opened a voice port from the preset yourself, uniz.host keeps that number and moves it to "Already open", which frees its slot.
• Only a server without uniz-link, with the mod installed by upload, still needs the old steps: open the Simple Voice Chat or Plasmo Voice preset in the Extra ports card, put the number it gives into the mod's config, then restart the server.

How the bridge itself behaves:

• Sound crosses at the distance the mod uses for that speech, never past the server's maximum.
• Talk inside a closed or isolated group never reaches a web or app player, and a player muted in the mod stops crossing.
• While voice is on, uniz.host sets the mods' range settings from the owner's maximum each time the server boots. Plasmo Voice users get the same three distances as everyone else. Simple Voice Chat has two ranges, so its users talk at the maximum and whisper at 8 blocks. A change of maximum reaches the mod side after the next restart, while web and app users follow it at once. While voice is on, hand edits of those settings are overwritten.
• Your own values come back. Before uniz.host first changes a mod's range settings it saves the values you had. When you turn voice off, the next restart puts them back. A server that never turns voice on is never touched.
• The mods' extras, such as groups and broadcast, keep working among mod users only.
• A mod user's voice reaches nearby web and app players through uniz.host's voice service.

These two mods are the only ones supported.

Your device

• PC. Use a browser and keep the voice tab open next to the game. Wear headphones: game sound from speakers leaks into the microphone and other players hear it.
• iPhone. There is no iPhone app. Open the web page, join, then switch to Minecraft. In our test on an iPhone the voice kept going with Minecraft in front and with the screen locked.
• Android. Use the Android app. In our test on a Xiaomi phone the browser's microphone went silent while Minecraft was in front, and the page looked fine. The app keeps the microphone alive by running in the background with a notification. Download the APK from cdn.uniz.host/uniz-voice/uniz-voice.apk and allow the install when Android asks. On first run it asks for three things: the microphone; notifications, because Android requires one while an app uses the microphone in the background (it shows a timer with Mute and Leave buttons); and battery set to "no restrictions", because Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and Realme often close background apps and the voice would cut out mid-game.
• Theme and language. The page and the app open in dark mode, with a light and dark button beside the TH and EN switch. The choice is remembered on the device. The page lives at a different address from uniz.host, so it cannot read the theme you picked there.

When something does not work

If you hear nobody, remember that you hear only players who are inside their own range. Alone on a server, silence is normal. In a crowd, check that the page or app says connected and that your device volume is up.

Networks that allow only port 443 cannot carry voice. A player on such a network usually cannot reach the game server either.

Read next

• Endstone on a Bedrock server — switch a standard Bedrock server to Endstone to get voice
• Minecraft server types — which families run plugins and Bedrock crossplay
• Whitelist, operators and bans — control who can join and who is an operator
• /minecraft — create a server on uniz.host