How to fix made for older version problem with most resource packs?

Minecraft is one of those games that receives regular updates. Sometimes they’re very frequent, which can cause problems with installing old resource packs on a newer versions of the game. We all know and hopefully understand that updating a resource pack, depending on its theme, resolution and style, is quite hard work and time consuming. But at the same time, we want to continue using our favorite texture pack while staying up to date with Minecraft. The most common problem with it is that when you try to install an older version of the resource pack into the latest version of the game, most likely you will receive an incompatibility warning or a message that this texture pack was created for an older version of the game. In other words, every Minecraft update makes most packs incompatible.

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Minecraft describes this thing as an incompatible texture pack with the current version of Minecraft. We are happy to say that there are 2 ways we know of to solve this problem, but none of them will magically “create” the missing textures for you. By that, we mean that both of these methods are only meant to remove the incompatibility message, so you won’t get it again (until the next Minecraft update for sure). This means that if, say, Minecraft 1.19 adds new blocks or items, your favorite resource pack’s author might not create those textures yet, so you won’t get an incompatibility warning, but you will see the default (vanilla) texture for that particular block or item. From personal experience, we can say that this is not so tragic and in most cases will not cause much discomfort during the gameplay if most of the textures are already completed in your favorite resource pack.

Method 1 (simple and fast):

The easiest way to solve this problem is to simply ignore the message and click yes. That’s all. But if you want to stop receiving this warning for a specific resource pack and convert it to a newer version, read the instructions below.

Method 2 (for advanced users):

For Windows users:

  1. Open the “Roaming” folder, by simultaneously pressing the Win + R keys, an input window will appear, enter “%appdata%” and press Enter.
  2. In “Roaming” you will see many different folders, you will need to look for the “Minecraft” folder. The Minecraft folder should have a “resourcepacks” folder (if it’s not there, just create it), which you must open.
  3. If you correctly installed your resource packs, in this folder you will see all installed resource packs. Open the one you have a “made for an older version” problem with.
  4. Now open the file named “pack.mcmeta”. You will need to make a very, very small change to one of the config values.
  5. In a recently opened file, you will see a line of text labeled “pack_format” followed by a number. Just change this number to “7” (7 is for Minecraft version 1.17+, if you are playing on different version of Minecraft, you can find the corresponding numbers for each version below on this page) and save the file. Done!

For Apple (OS X, Mac) users:

  1. In your “Go” menu, open “Finder” and select “Go to Folder“, in the input box type “~/Library/Application Support/minecraft” and press Enter (or click “Go”).
  2. There you should have a “resourcepacks” folder (if it’s not there, just create it). Open it.
  3. In this folder you will see all installed resource packs. Open the one you have a “made for an older version” problem with.
  4. Now open the file named “pack.mcmeta”.
  5. In a recently opened file, you will see a line of text labeled “pack_format” followed by a number. Just change this number to “7” (7 is for Minecraft version 1.17+, if you are playing on different version of Minecraft, you can find the corresponding numbers for each version below on this page) and save the file. Done!

Note: your game must be closed, otherwise you will not be able to save the file, or the saved file will not apply the changes to the game until you restart the game.

Corresponding pack_format numbers for each Minecraft version:

  • 1 for Minecraft 1.6.1 – 1.8.9
  • 2 for Minecraft 1.9 – 1.10.2
  • 3 for Minecraft 1.11 – 1.12.2
  • 4 for Minecraft 1.13 – 1.14.4
  • 5 for Minecraft 1.15 – 1.16.1
  • 6 for Minecraft 1.16.2 – 1.16.5
  • 7 for Minecraft 1.17
  • 8 for Minecraft 1.18
  • 9 for Minecraft 1.19
  • 13 for Minecraft 1.19.4
  • 15 for Minecraft 1.20 – 1.20.1
  • 18 for Minecraft 1.20.2
  • 26 for Minecraft 1.20.3 – 1.20.4
  • 41 for Minecraft 1.20.5 – 1.20.6
  • 48 for Minecraft 1.21 – 1.21.1
  • 57 for Minecraft 1.21.2 – 1.21.3
  • 61 for Minecraft 1.21.4