Durability is a property that affects tools, weapons, and armor, as well as certain other usable items. It represents the number of useful actions an item can perform and depletes upon item use. The bar starts at green, but as the durability decreases, the color gradually turns to yellow, then orange, and finally red. When the durability is empty, the item is about to become destroyed. Durability may be increased by combining two damaged items in the crafting grid or a grindstone, or repairing them with materials in an anvil, or through the Mending enchantment.

Interface

The remaining durability of any item can be seen by looking at the item's durability bar on the bottom of the item icon in the inventory and action bar. Unused items do not display a durability bar. As the item's durability decreases, the bar's colored area shortens right to left, changing color from green to red and leaving an empty gray part. When the item has a small number of uses left, the durability bar is represented as empty, due to rounding to the nearest pixel 1-down, until the tool or armor is destroyed.

In Java Edition, the numeric durability of the player's items can be displayed in-game by pressing F3+H. This enables additional information in the tooltips for items in the player's inventory.

A weapon, tool or piece of armor picked up by a mob does not decrease in durability;^[1] it remains the same as when the item was first picked up by the mob. However, a helmet worn by an undead mob in sunlight loses durability due to the helmet absorbing the mob's damage from burning.^[2] In Java Edition, a crossbow wielded by a pillager or a piglin also loses durability and eventually breaks;^[3] this is not the case in Bedrock Edition.^[4]

Items with the Unbreakable tag do not deplete their durability or break when used. Their durability is not shown, even with advanced tooltips enabled, though it is retained in the NBT data. Such an item can be acquired using /give @s <item_name>{Unbreakable:1b}.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Armor durability

Armor durability is based on the armor's type (head, torso, legs, feet) and material (leather, gold, chain mail, iron, diamond, and netherite). Any time the player takes damage that can be reduced by armor, each piece of armor they are wearing loses 1 durability for every 4 of incoming damage (rounded down, but never below 1).

Armor can reduce damage from the following sources:

• Direct attacks from mobs and other players
  • This includes Strength and Weakness status effects or extra damage from enchantments.
• Getting hit with an arrow, shulker bullet, thrown trident, egg, snowball, llama spit, fireball, or wither skull
  • This includes extra damage from enchantments
• Getting hit with an egg or snowball
• Laser beam from a guardian or elder guardian
• Damage from Thorns enchantment (as well as guardian's spikes)
• Getting struck by lightning
• Getting hit by a falling anvil or stalactite
• Touching a block of fire, lava, magma block (does not damage netherite armor)
• Touching a cactus, or moving inside sweet berry bush
• Explosions (including fireworks, but deals more than one point of durability)
• Getting hit by or falling into a pointed dripstone (excludes fall damage which ignores armor)

The following types of damage are not reduced by ordinary armor and have no effect on the armor's durability but some enchantments protect against them:

• Ongoing damage from being on fire
• Suffocating inside a block or due to entity cramming (also includes the world border)
• Drowning in water (partially for turtle shells)
• Fall damage (including ender pearls)
• Colliding a block with elytra
• Magic (Evoker fangs, dragon's breath, Poison, Wither and Instant Damage status effects)
• Being inside of a powder snow block (except entities wearing leather armor, which prevents freezing damage)

The following types of damage are not reduced by ordinary armor even with enchantments such as protection:

• Falling into the void or /kill
• Starvation
• Warden's ranged sonic attacks

Values in the table below represent the number of points of durability damage this armor can take before it is destroyed.

Note that every time the player takes damage that armor is capable of reducing (see above), it counts as one point of durability damage for every worn armor piece.

Material	Helmet	Chestplate	Leggings	Boots
Turtle Shell	275	N/A	N/A	N/A
Leather	55	80	75	65
Golden	77	112	105	91
Chainmail	165	240	225	195
Iron	165	240	225	195
Diamond	363	528	495	429
Netherite	407	592	555	481

Tool durability

Some tools do not have durability, and can therefore be used infinitely. These include buckets, clocks, compasses, leads, spyglasses and recovery compasses.

Some tools are not block-breaking tools: This includes bows, fishing rods, carrots on sticks, flint and steel, warped fungi on sticks, brushes, and elytra. Such tools are no better than bare fists at breaking blocks, but they do not take damage from doing so—they take damage by being used in their own various manners.

For block-breaking tools, a use is counted only if a player completely breaks apart one block or hits a mob. If a block is partially broken this is not counted as a full use.

Items with an Unbreaking enchantment do not always lose durability when used; for a given enchantment level, the chance of losing durability is 1 in (1+level). Such items last an extra level times their original durability, give or take a few.

Axes, pickaxes, and shovels:

• Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as 0 uses.
• Breaking other blocks counts as 1 use.
• Paving dirt or a grass block using a shovel to make a dirt path counts as 1 use.
• Using an axe on a log or wood to strip it counts as 1 use.
• Hitting a mob (hostile, neutral or passive) counts as 2 uses.

Hoes:

• Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as 0 uses.
• Breaking other blocks counts as 1 use.
• Tilling dirt or grass counts as 1 use.
• Hitting a mob counts as 2 uses.

Shears:

• Hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Shearing a sheep or a shearable animal counts as 1 use.
• Breaking any block counts as 1 use.

Swords:

• Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as 0 uses.
• Hitting a mob counts as 1 use.
• Breaking other blocks counts as 2 uses.

Fishing rods:

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Casting the line and reeling it in empty counts as 0 uses.
• Reeling in an item counts as 1 use.
• Catching the bobber/hook on a block, then reeling it in, counts as 2 uses.
• Using the line to yank on an item counts as 3 uses.
• Using the line to yank on a mob counts as 5 uses.

Carrot on a stick

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Using the boost counts as 7 uses.

Flint and steel

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Using it to set a block on fire or light a nether portal counts as 1 use.

Bow

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Firing an arrow counts as 1 use.

Tridents:

• Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as 0 uses.
• Attacking a mob or throwing counts as 1 use.
• Breaking other blocks counts as 2 uses.

Elytra

• Flying for one second counts as 1 use. The durability cannot go below 1.

Shield

• When the shield blocks an attack, it takes damage equal to the strength of the attack (rounded down) plus 1. Note: when the shield blocks an attack of 3 or stronger, it takes durability damage equal to the strength of the attack rounded up.

Crossbow

• Shooting an arrow counts as 1 use.
• Shooting three arrows (when enchanted with multishot) counts as 3 uses.
• Shooting a firework rocket counts as 3 uses.
• Shooting three firework rockets (when enchanted with multishot) counts as 3 × 3 = 9 uses.

Warped Fungus on a Stick

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Using the boost counts as 1 use.

Sparkler and Glow Stick‌^{[Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Education only]}

• Durability gradually decreases while the item is active and held in hand.
• If the player has a lit sparkler in their inventory and goes into the water, the sparkler is destroyed immediately regardless of durability.

Brush

• Breaking a block or hitting a mob counts as 0 uses.
• Brushing a suspicious block counts as 1 use.

All other tools can be used indefinitely.

Using a tool properly maximizes its durability. Assuming a player uses a tool appropriately, the following list shows the maximum durability for tools of each material type.

Materials

• Gold: 32 uses
• Wood: 59 uses
• Stone: 131 uses
• Copper: 190 uses
• Iron: 250 uses
• Diamond: 1561 uses
• Netherite: 2031 uses

Specific tools

• Fishing rod: 64 uses ‌^{[Java Edition only]} or 384 uses ‌‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• Flint and steel: 64 uses
• Brush: 64 uses
• Carrot on a stick: 25 uses
• Shears: 238 uses
• Shield: 336 uses
• Bow: 384 uses
• Trident: 250 uses
• Elytra: 432 uses
• Crossbow: 465 uses ‌^{[Java Edition only]} or 464 uses ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• Warped Fungus on a Stick: 100 uses
• Sparkler ‌^{[Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Education only]} : 100 uses
• Glow Stick ‌^{[Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Education only]} : 100 uses

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Item breaks	Players	When an item's durability is exhausted	entity.item.break	subtitles.entity.item.break	0.8	0.8-1.2	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Players	When an item's durability is exhausted	random.break	1.0	0.9

History

Java Edition Indev
0.31		20100110			When iron tools were introduced, they had infinite durability.
		20100128			When wooden, stone, and diamond tools were introduced, they had infinite durability.
		20100131			Durability of all tools are no longer infinite and had a much lower durability than they do now. Iron tools had 129 uses, wooden tools had 33, stone tools had 65, diamond tools had 257, and gold tools have 33.
Java Edition Infdev
20100313					Diamond tools' durability has been increased to 513.
Java Edition Alpha
?					Diamond tools' durability have been increased to 1025.
1.0.5_01					When a tool breaks in singleplayer, the game no longer considers the last block broken, as if it had been done with the player's hands.
Java Edition Beta
1.2					The durability of wood, stone, iron, and diamond tools have been increased to about twice the previous value. The durability of gold tools was not increased, but they were given a speed boost.
Java Edition
1.0.0		?			Previously, all armor materials offered the same base number of armor points, and the effective armor points of a character were equal to the sum of the base armor point values, times the sum of the current durabilities, divided by the sum of the base durabilities. This is no longer the case as of 1.9-pre1. This led to some interesting cases where a single, badly damaged piece could reduce total armor points or a single, high-quality piece of armor could be greatly augmented with a set of low-quality, low-tier armor.
					When a tool breaks in multiplayer, the game no longer considers the last block broken, as if it had been done with the player's hands.
1.3.1		12w24a			Breaking a block that can be instantly mined by hand while holding a block-breaking tool no longer reduces the tool's durability.
1.4.2		12w41a			F3 + H now shows tool and armor durability on damaged items.
1.11		16w41a			The durability bar is revamped: The color is now bright during the entire length of the bar.
					Previously, the bar fades into  grape green,  dark yellow,  dark orange,  dark orange-red, and eventually  red as it decreases in length.
					The background of the durability bar is now completely black, where it used to be transparent.
1.13.1		18w30b			The durability of all items are decreased by one due to the fix of MC-120664.
1.16		20w10a			Hoes now lose 2 durability when used as weapons.
1.18		21w37a			The durability of crossbows is increased to 465 to match Bedrock Edition.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0					When stone tools and shears were introduced, they had infinite durability as crafting was not yet implemented.
v0.3.0					When wooden tools were introduced, they had a much lower durability than they do now. Wooden tools had 11 uses.
					Stone tools' durability have been decreased to 132 uses.
v0.3.3					Attacking mobs now counts as 1 use for swords and 2 uses for axes, pickaxes, and shovels.
					The durability of wooden tools has been increased from 11 uses to 60 uses.
					The durability of iron and diamond tools has been increased to match Java Edition. The durability of gold tools was not increased, but they were given a speed boost.[verify]

See also

• Item repair

References