7 Days to Die: Complete Console Commands Guide
Master 7 Days to Die with all console commands. Learn how to enable cheats, spawn items, control weather, manage players, and customize your server experience.
To open the console in 7 Days to Die, press F1 on US/EU keyboards. Once open, type any command and hit Enter to execute it. To unlock cheats like God Mode and Invisibility, run debugmenu (or dm) first, then press Escape to access the cheat menu. Every command listed below works as of the 1.0 stable release (January 2025).
Below you’ll find every major command organized by function — utility, player management, spawning, buffs, and teleportation — so you can find what you need without scrolling through an unsorted wall of text.
Opening the Console on Any Keyboard Layout
F1 covers most setups, but keyboard layouts vary more than you’d expect. If F1 does nothing, try one of these alternatives depending on your region:
- US / EU standard: F1
- UK / Nordic layouts: @ or “
- German: Ö
- Norwegian / Danish: Ø
- Spanish: Ñ
- Some laptop layouts: F2
Once the console window is up, type help and press Enter for a full list of available commands. For details on any specific command, use help [command name] — for example, help buff pulls up the exact syntax and available parameters. The clear command wipes the console output if it gets cluttered.
One thing worth knowing: most cheat-style commands (God Mode, fly, noclip) won’t appear in the console itself. They’re triggered through the debug menu UI after you’ve run debugmenu. The console is primarily for server management, spawning, and player control — the actual power-user stuff.
Essential Console Commands Reference
| Command | What It Does | Category |
|---|---|---|
| help | Lists all commands; add a command name for details | Utility |
| clear | Clears console output | Utility |
| shutdown | Closes the game or dedicated server | Utility |
| debugmenu / dm | Toggles the debug/cheat menu | Utility |
| creativemenu / cm | Toggles the Creative Menu (item spawner UI) | Utility |
| saveworld | Forces a manual world save | Utility |
| gettime | Shows current in-game time and day | Utility |
| settime [value] | Sets the in-game time (0–24000) | Utility |
| shownexthordetime | Displays when the next Blood Moon horde hits | Utility |
| getgamepref | Shows current game preference settings | Utility |
| getgamestat | Shows live game statistics | Utility |
| exportcurrentconfigs | Exports server config files | Utility |
| listents | Lists all active entities in the world | Utility |
| listthreads | Shows active game threads | Utility |
| damagereset | Resets damage on all active blocks | Utility |
| weather | Shows current weather settings | Weather |
| weathersurvival [on/off] | Enables or disables weather survival mechanics | Weather |
| water | Displays current water settings | Utility |
| listplayers / lp | Lists all players currently on the server | Player Mgmt |
| listplayerids | Shows player IDs (needed for targeted commands) | Player Mgmt |
| listlandclaim | Shows all active land claims with owner names | Player Mgmt |
| kick [player] | Kicks a specific player from the server | Player Mgmt |
| kickall | Kicks all players from the server | Player Mgmt |
| kill [player] | Kills the targeted player or nearest zombie | Player Mgmt |
| killall | Kills all active entities on the server | Player Mgmt |
| ban add [player] [duration] [reason] | Bans a player for a set duration | Player Mgmt |
| ban remove [player] | Removes a player from the ban list | Player Mgmt |
| ban list | Shows all currently banned players | Player Mgmt |
| admin add [player] [level] | Grants admin status to a player | Player Mgmt |
| admin remove [player] | Removes admin status from a player | Player Mgmt |
| whitelist add [player] | Adds player to the server whitelist | Player Mgmt |
| whitelist remove [player] | Removes player from the whitelist | Player Mgmt |
| whitelist | Shows the current whitelist | Player Mgmt |
| cp add/remove/list | Manages command permissions by level | Player Mgmt |
| say [message] | Broadcasts a server-wide message to all players | Player Mgmt |
| giveself [item] [quantity] | Gives yourself a specific item | Spawning |
| giveselfxp [amount] | Adds XP directly to your character | Spawning |
| spawnsupplycrate | Drops a supply crate near your position | Spawning |
| spawnairdrop | Triggers an airdrop event | Spawning |
| spawnwh | Spawns a wandering horde | Spawning |
| spawnscouts | Spawns zombie scout units | Spawning |
| buff [buffname] | Applies a buff to your character | Buffs |
| debuff [buffname] | Removes a specific buff from your character | Buffs |
| buffplayer [player] [buffname] | Applies a buff to a specific player | Buffs |
| starve | Instantly sets your hunger to critical | Debuffs |
| thirsty | Instantly sets your thirst to critical | Debuffs |
| exhausted | Sets your stamina to exhausted state | Debuffs |
| givesquest [questname] | Grants a quest to your character | Quests |
| removequest [questname] | Removes an active quest | Quests |
| teleport [x] [y] [z] | Teleports you to specific coordinates | Teleport |
| teleportplayer [player] [x] [y] [z] | Teleports another player to coordinates | Teleport |
| gfx af [0/1] | Toggles Anisotropic Filtering off/on | Graphics |
Utility and Server Management Commands
These are the commands you’ll use most on a dedicated server — or any time you want control over the game state without touching the actual gameplay loop.
saveworld is the big one. On a dedicated server, the auto-save interval is set in your server config, but you never want to rely on it after something important happens. Base just expanded, major event wrapped up? Save manually. It takes a couple of seconds and saves headaches.
gettime and settime are genuinely useful for testing. The settime value runs from 0 to 24000, where 8000 is roughly 8:00 AM in-game. Want to skip the night? settime 8000 jumps you to morning. Want to force-trigger a Blood Moon to test your defenses? Use shownexthordetime to check when it’s scheduled, then set the time accordingly.
weathersurvival off is a common server preference for casual groups — it disables temperature and moisture mechanics so players stop dying to hypothermia when the game is supposed to be about zombies. Run it once at world start and forget it.
The exportcurrentconfigs command dumps your current server settings to file. Useful if you’ve tweaked values in-session and want to preserve those as your baseline config going forward.
damagereset is niche but worth knowing. It restores all block damage in the loaded area. If you’re running a server and a horde just shredded someone’s starter base in the first week, this can undo the structural damage while players are still learning the game.
Player Management and Server Administration
Running a multiplayer server without knowing these commands is asking for problems. The admin hierarchy in 7 Days to Die uses numeric permission levels — lower numbers mean higher access. Level 0 is full admin. When you run admin add [playername] 0, that player gets everything. Be careful with that.
The ban command accepts time units: hours, days, weeks, months, or years. A practical example: ban add [steamid] 7 days “griefing”. Use Steam IDs rather than display names when possible — player names can be changed, Steam IDs can’t.
listplayerids is your first stop whenever you need to act on a specific player. It gives you the entity ID and Steam ID for everyone connected. You’ll need one of those IDs for most targeted commands like buffplayer, teleportplayer, and kick.
killall deserves a warning. It kills every active entity — players included. On a multiplayer server, that’s a catastrophic admin mistake if you meant to clear zombies from a specific area. There’s no “killall zombies” parameter; it’s everything or nothing. If you want to clear a horde without harming players, use the debug menu’s kill options after running dm instead.
say broadcasts a message to all connected players as a system announcement. Useful for warning players before a scheduled restart: say “Server restarting in 5 minutes”.
The cp (command permission) system lets you lock specific commands behind permission levels. This way you can give a trusted moderator ban privileges without giving them full admin access. The syntax is cp add [command] [permissionlevel].
Spawning Items, Hordes, and Airdrops
The giveself command is the workhorse for single-player testing. The syntax is giveself [itemname] [quality] [count]. Item names are the internal IDs — not display names. For example, an AK-47 is gunAK47, iron pickaxe is meleeToolPickaxeIron. If you’re not sure of the exact ID, the Creative Menu (toggle with cm) lets you search visually and grab items directly without needing to know the internal name.
giveselfxp [amount] adds experience directly. There’s no cap per command, so you can dump in whatever number you want. Community testing suggests the XP required to reach level 300 (the current soft cap) is in the hundreds of millions — if you’re skipping the grind entirely, be generous with the number.
For event testing, spawnairdrop and spawnsupplycrate behave differently. spawnairdrop triggers the actual airdrop event — a plane flies over and drops a crate with a parachute. spawnsupplycrate just materializes the crate at your location immediately, no fanfare. For base testing, the supply crate version is faster.
spawnwh spawns a wandering horde headed toward your position. spawnscouts sends zombie scouts that then radio in a larger group if they spot you — exactly the mechanic that occurs naturally in the world. Both are excellent for stress-testing defenses mid-build without waiting for day 7.
Buff, Debuff, and Status Commands
The buff system is where things get interesting — and a little messy, because buff names are internal XML IDs, not the display names you see in-game.
Running buff with no arguments pulls up the complete list of available buffs. There are hundreds. Some immediately useful ones for testing or single-player convenience:
- buff buffmegaCrush — significant strength and melee buff
- buff drinkJarBoiledWater — clears thirst instantly (simulates drinking water)
- buff foodPoisoning — applies food poisoning (useful for testing cure items)
- buff buffconcussed — applies the concussion debuff
The debuff command removes a named buff. So if you accidentally applied something or want to clear a status effect, debuff [buffname] strips it out. This is especially handy for removing disease buffs during testing without hunting for the right cure item.
buffplayer works the same as buff but targets another player by their entity ID. On a server, this lets admins apply healing buffs to players in trouble — or, less charitably, apply debuffs to griefers before kicking them.
The three negative status commands — starve, thirsty, and exhausted — exist primarily for developer testing of survival mechanics. They’re rarely useful in normal play, but if you’re recording content or stress-testing a build’s food efficiency, they’re a faster way to drain your stats than waiting.
The quest commands, givesquest and removequest, accept the internal quest IDs. Running givesquest with no arguments shows the full quest list. These are handy if a quest bugged out mid-completion or you want to replay a specific trader quest chain.
Teleportation and Coordinate Navigation
Teleportation in 7 Days to Die uses the standard XYZ coordinate system. To find your current coordinates, open the map (M) — your position shows in the bottom-left corner. The Y axis is elevation, so getting that wrong will either drop you underground or launch you into the air.
The basic syntax: teleport [x] [y] [z]. For example, teleport 500 70 -200. If you’re teleporting to a specific biome or POI and you’re not sure of the exact Y value, add about 5–10 meters above estimated ground level. The game handles the drop fine; landing inside solid terrain is the problem.
teleportplayer [entityid] [x] [y] [z] moves another player to the target coordinates. Get their entity ID first with listplayerids. This is the fastest way to extract someone who’s glitched into geometry or needs to be relocated fast on a server.
A practical tip for server admins: if you want to teleport a player to your own location rather than typed coordinates, check your own coordinates from the map first, then use those values in the command. There’s no native “teleport player to me” shortcut in the console — it’s always coordinate-based.
When Commands Don’t Work
A few issues come up repeatedly, and most have straightforward fixes.
Console won’t open at all. The most common cause is a keyboard layout mismatch. Try the full list from the opening section — F1, F2, @, “, Ö, Ø, Ñ. If none work, check if any other software is intercepting the keypress (overlay apps, macro software, some peripherals with custom drivers).
Command returns “Unknown command.” Double-check spelling — the console doesn’t autocomplete, and one wrong character breaks it entirely. Also confirm you’re not confusing display names with internal IDs, especially for giveself and buff commands.
Cheats like God Mode don’t appear after running debugmenu. Make sure you’ve pressed Escape after running the command — the cheat options appear in the escape menu, not the console itself. The debug menu toggle is separate from the console window.
Commands work in single-player but not on a dedicated server. You need admin privileges on the server. Have the server owner run admin add [your steamid] 0, then reconnect. Some commands also require a specific permission level set via the cp system.
settime doesn’t seem to advance correctly. The value range is 0–24000 per in-game day. If you input a number above 24000, it wraps around. 12000 equals noon; 22000 is approximately 10 PM, which is when you want to be indoors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do console commands disable achievements?
Using debugmenu or creativemenu disables Steam achievements for that session. If you close the menus and continue playing, achievements won’t re-enable until you restart the game. For a clean playthrough with achievements, start a separate save.
Can other players see what I type in the console?
No. Console input is local only. The only exception is the say command, which broadcasts to all connected players by design.
Is there a command to remove all zombies without killing players?
There’s no direct “kill zombies only” console command. The closest option: run dm, press Escape, and use the debug menu options, which offer more granular entity control. Alternatively, killall clears everything — players included — so use it only in single-player or when the server is empty.
How do I find item IDs for the giveself command?
Open the Creative Menu with cm in the console, then search visually. Hovering over items in the creative menu reveals their internal names. You can also browse the game’s XML files at 7 Days to Die/Data/Config/items.xml for the full item list with IDs.
Does teleport work on the console (PS5/Xbox) versions?
No. Console commands are PC-only. The PS5 and Xbox versions of 7 Days to Die don’t have a command console. As of January 2025, there’s no equivalent cheat system on console platforms.
What permission level do I need to run commands on a server?
Most gameplay commands (buff, teleport, giveself) require a permission level of 0 (full admin) by default. The cp system lets server owners adjust this per command, allowing moderators with higher numeric permission levels to run specific commands without full admin access.
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