Guide · updated 23 October 2026

How to multibox WoW on a private server

Multiboxing means playing several characters at once, each in its own game window, from one keyboard. Done well, it feels like playing one character that happens to be a whole group. This guide covers what you need, which team to start with and how to set up keys, follow and windows, whether you do it by hand or with a launcher.

1. Is it allowed?

That depends on your server, so read its rules first. Most private servers that allow multiboxing use the same idea: one key press does one action in each window. Sending the same key to five windows is fine; a program that plays for you is not.

• Leaving characters on follow while you're away from the keyboard is almost always forbidden, and battlegrounds often have stricter rules.
• Some servers limit how many of your characters may be in the same zone or instance at once.
• Rules change, so check them again now and then.

2. What you need

• One account per character. Each window logs in with its own account, so a five-character team needs five accounts.
• One copy of the game client. All windows can start from the same WoW folder.
• A reasonable PC. Older clients like 1.12, 2.4.3 and 3.3.5a are light: an ordinary gaming PC with 16 GB of memory usually runs five of them at low settings. Newer clients need more.
• One or two screens. One screen works fine with your main in a big window and the others small next to it.

3. Choosing your first team

Start smaller than you think. Two characters, your main and a healer that follows it, teaches you the basics in an evening. Go to five once that feels easy.

For a bigger team, three things make life simple:

• Ranged characters on the alts. Casters and hunters don't have to walk up to the target, so they need far less steering than melee.
• The same class, or the same kind of class, several times. Then key 1 can be the main attack on every alt, and you only learn one set of keys.
• Self-healing or a dedicated healer. Fewer deaths means fewer runs back from the graveyard with five ghosts.

Popular starting points on Wrath of the Lich King (3.3.5a) servers:

4. Keys, follow and assist

Your alts need to do three things: follow your main, attack what your main attacks, and use their abilities when you press a key.

Keep the action bars the same. Put the main attack on key 1 on every alt, the area attack on 2, and so on. Give the healer its own keys, because it shouldn't cast when the others do.

By hand, this is done with macros. A typical attack macro on each alt, with "Frostvale" as your main:

#showtooltip
/assist Frostvale
/cast Lightning Bolt

and a follow key:

/follow Frostvale

Then you need a tool that sends your key press to every window at once, and you write a macro like this for every ability on every alt. That's the "evening of setup" multiboxers talk about, and it starts again when you change your main.

Tip: keep keys that should only go to your main, like movement and chat, out of the broadcast. Otherwise all five characters start walking into walls.

5. Windows and performance

• Windowed mode for every client. Then you can place the windows: your main large, the alts small along the side or on a second screen.
• Low settings on the alts. They only need to be visible enough to see they're alive.
• Limit the frame rate of background windows. On older clients the console setting maxfpsbk does this. It saves a lot of CPU.
• Sound off on the alts, or five copies of every spell play at once.
• Swap your main when needed. Move a character into the big window when you need to click or loot something on it.

6. Playing: leveling and dungeons

• Questing: share quests from your main so everyone has them. Kill-quests count for the whole group.
• Mounts and flying: alts on follow mount and dismount with you if you broadcast the mount key.
• Dungeons: a full team of five is its own dungeon group. With the Dungeon Finder, every alt has to accept the invite too.
• Looting: set loot to free-for-all or round robin while leveling, so you don't roll on every item five times.
• Stay at the keyboard. Following unattended is what gets multiboxers banned, not multiboxing itself.

7. Doing it faster with Rimecall

Rimecall is a launcher made for exactly this, on private servers from Classic 1.12 to Mists of Pandaria 5.4.8. It does the setup from this guide for you:

It sends one key press to each window, the way most servers allow, and doesn't read or change game memory. Your passwords stay encrypted on your own PC.