Backing Up

Before we even begin you should back up your minecraft folder before continuing. No matter what you’re installing on Minecraft there is always a risk of corruption and loss of a World Save.

 

Installation

Don’t be intimidated if you’re not a computer wiz because neither am I and compared to installing certain mods and Modloaders installing Snapshots is a breeze.

To get the snapshot head over to https://mojang.com/ and download the snapshot you wish to install.

Once you have downloaded the desired file you need to navigate to your Minecraft folder:

Mac OSX: Finder > Your Name > Library > Application Support > minecraft > bin

Windows: “Start” > in the search bar type (%appdata%) and click on roaming then minecraft.

Once in your bin folder you will see a file called “minecraft.jar”, go ahead and replace this with the downloaded Snapshot.

Guess what…you’re done!

After the release of Minecraft 1.6 you will be able to download a new launcher for Minecraft, which will install new Snapshots automatically opposed to you doing it manually. This will take out the “heavy lifting” of manual installation.