FoliaTimber: A Smart Tree Felling Plugin for Folia

Sometimes the simplest ideas are born from solutions you just can't find online.

Today, I'm excited to share a project I've been working on for quite some time: FoliaTimber is now live on Modrinth and ready to use.

The Problem

We've all been there in Minecraft: you break a single log, the entire tree comes down... and so does the wall of a villager's house. Or worse, part of your carefully crafted treehouse becomes collateral damage to a timber plugin.

The solution? Finding a timber plugin compatible with Folia—a high-performance, multi-threaded server software. But no matter how hard I searched, every plugin either lacked Folia support or had unreliable structure protection. I was tired of seeing "Folia compatibility not found" errors on server startup.

So I made a decision: If you want something done right, do it yourself.

The Logic Behind It

FoliaTimber's core philosophy is simple yet effective: Only fell natural trees, never touch player structures.

But how do we determine whether a block belongs to a natural tree or a player-built structure? This is where a two-layer protection system comes into play:

• Leaf-to-Log Ratio Analysis: Natural trees have a predictable leaf-to-log ratio. An oak tree, for instance, has an expected number of leaves relative to its logs. If the structure connected to the block you're breaking doesn't match this ratio, it's likely a player-made structure.

• CoreProtect Integration: If CoreProtect is installed on your server, FoliaTimber queries the block's history. If the block was placed by a player, the timber feature is automatically disabled for that block.

The combination of these two methods minimizes both false positives (accidentally breaking structures) and false negatives (failing to fell trees).

Technical Details

FoliaTimber leverages Folia's region-aware scheduling system to ensure high performance. Unlike traditional Bukkit plugins, every operation is executed on the appropriate region's thread. This allows even massive trees to be felled without impacting server TPS.

Additional features include:

• Direct Inventory Insertion: Harvested logs are added directly to your inventory instead of dropping as entities. This eliminates entity lag and prevents item loss.

• Smart Durability: Axe durability is only consumed for logs, not for decaying leaves.

• WorldGuard Support: The timber feature is automatically disabled in protected regions.

Conclusion

FoliaTimber is an open-source project born out of necessity and shared with the community. It's released under the MIT license and has been approved as safe by Modrinth.

If you're looking for a timber plugin you can confidently use on your Folia server, give it a try.

Get the plugin here: https://modrinth.com/plugin/foliatimber