Sneaking (or crouching) is a gameplay feature that prevents players from falling off of blocks and helps them hide from mobs, among other useful features.

Controls

In Java and Bedrock editions with keyboard controls, the control for sneaking defaults to ⇧ Shift. The player sneaks as long as the key is held down. In Bedrock Edition with touch controls, sneaking is toggled by double-tapping and toggled back by double-tapping . In Bedrock Edition with gamepad controls, sneaking is toggled by pressing on . Certain actions like opening the inventory can cancel sneaking, even if the player is still holding down the key for sneaking. This never happens on touch devices as the player doesn't need to hold down the sneak key.

Effects

While sneaking:

• Players are prevented from walking off edges if the difference in height between the two surfaces is ⁵⁄₈ of a block or higher, which makes sneaking useful for building horizontally outward over empty space.
  • The player can still dismount blocks while sneaking by jumping over the block's edge.
  • A sneaking player still falls if the block beneath the player's feet is destroyed.
• The player moves slower, at a speed of 1.295 m/s.
  • If two movement keys are pressed at once, the player sneaks diagonally at a faster speed of 1.832 m/s.
• Hostile mobs do not become aware of the player until within 80% of the usual detection range.
• Eye level moves down ¹⁄₈ of a block, and the character model bends over slightly. This can be seen in 3rd person view.
• The player's hitbox height reduces from its usual 1.8 blocks to 1.5 blocks.
• Players cannot hear their own footstep sounds.
• In multiplayer, a sneaking player's name tag appears fainter than normal, invisible to players more than 32 blocks away, and invisible through solid blocks.
• If players are on a ladder or vines, they do not move down. This gives the impression of holding on to that specific ladder rung or vine. Mining speed is still decreased by a factor of 5.
• Pressing use prioritizes using a held item over interacting with a targeted block. For example, this allows placing a hopper on a chest, a torch on a furnace, or redstone on a command block.
• Players are able to interact with a horse (donkey or mule inventories, also) when pressing use item control while holding the sneak key.
• The player moves downward on scaffolding.
  • The player can't fall through a scaffolding block hanging in mid-air.
• The player moves downward in powder snow if they are wearing leather boots.
  • Without leather boots, the player simply sinks into powder snow without control.
• Sneaking prevents the player from bouncing on slime blocks, resulting in fall damage.
• Magma blocks do not cause harm.
• Redstone ore does not light if stepped on by a sneaking player.
• Sneaking causes a player to sink faster when submerged in water or lava.
• Sculk sensors and wardens do not detect sneaking players, even if they jump while sneaking.
  • Sculk sensors can still detect players that stand on top of them, even when they are sneaking.
  • The warden can still "sniff out" a sneaking player's location and slowly approach them.
• In Java Edition, if sneaking is set to "Toggle" under Accessibility Settings, the player keeps sneaking when interacting with blocks that have a UI if the player was sneaking when they interacted with the block.
• In Bedrock Edition, sneaking is used to block attacks while holding a shield.

Sneaking does not affect:

• Jump height; players can still jump up to the same heights and at the same vertical speed. Horizontal jump speed and distance is decreased, however.
• Farmland and crops; they are still trampled when jumped upon.

Achievements

Advancements

	Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
		Sneak 100	Sneak near a Sculk Sensor or Warden to prevent it from detecting you	Adventure	Sneak within 8 blocks from a sculk sensor, or 16 blocks from a warden.	adventure/avoid_vibration

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Sneaking" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• While flying in Creative mode, holding the jump and sneak buttons simultaneously causes the player to remain at the same height.
• In Bedrock Edition, the player uses a sneaking stance when flying downward. The player can also place blocks on chests, furnaces and other utility blocks in this stance, suggesting the player is actually in a sneaking mode. In Java Edition, the player no longer enters sneak mode when flying downward, but they still don't interact with blocks by right-clicking.
• In Bedrock Edition, the player can bridge out by looking at the air block they are placing on, though it must be adjacent to an existing block. This works even if the player is not sneaking.^[1]
  • In Java Edition, the player must travel to the edge of the block (usually by sneaking) and look backward to place the next block.
• If the player begins to sneak while sprinting, they sneak faster than one who sneaks without sprinting.^[2]
  • This is more noticeable when the player is wearing pants or leggings with the Swift Sneak enchantment.

Gallery

Player

This section would benefit from the addition of more images. 

Please remove this notice once you've added suitable images to the article.
The specific instructions are: Updated Steve and Alex, new renders of Ari, Efe, Kai, Makena, Noor, Sunny, and Zuri.

• 
  Alex
• 
  Steve

Screenshots

• 
  The first image of sneaking.
• 
  Kai sneaking under a slab at a pillager outpost.
• 
  A side view of sneaking.

See also

• Crawling
• Swimming
• Sprinting

References