Mastering Inventory Management in Minecraft: Tips and Tricks

Are you a Minecraft player looking to master the art of inventory management?

This article covers everything you need to know, from accessing and organizing your inventory to keeping it safe and sorted.

Discover useful tips and tricks for managing your items efficiently, including using hotkeys, crafting tables, and hidden storage spaces.

Learn how to keep your inventory safe with chests and ender chests, as well as how to sort items using item frames and sorting systems.

Don’t miss out on the best inventory management tips to enhance your gameplay experience!

What is Inventory in Minecraft?

The term inventory in Minecraft refers to the collection of every object that a player character possesses. It includes both main and offhand equipment slots, as well as the hotbar, armor slots, storage slots, and furnace slots. Depending on the Java Edition (comprehensive) or Bedrock Edition interface and control style you are using, this can number as many as 57 item slots.

It is important to understand that the inventory mechanics of Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft are similar but are not identical when it comes to automation, crafting, and management systems. The intentional differences created by the developers mean that players have had to adapt to each unique UI environment page, but both have their own unique advantages and challenges.

How to Access Inventory in Minecraft?

To access your inventory in Minecraft, you open the chest or two boxes that appear to the left of the main action bars at the bottom of the screen. There is one box on top and one directly below. One of these on a computer is usually an E and on a tablet or phone it is at the top of the screen and often looks like three lines.

If the hot bar is full (27 containers) some will enlarge when the icon is clicked to reveal a storage item inside. The inventory in Minecraft is a 3×3 grid of crafting spaces plus a fourth spot that can hold armor if it is not already worn. Below it is a 3×9 grid for the player’s personal storage which can be arranged and rearranged as needed. There are a variety of commands typically used by students with the education edition of Minecraft which allow the player to access and give themselves or others items as well as allowing them to go directly to the `Inventory screen.

After you open the initial inventory box, you can go directly to your inventory using the Hotkey ‘E’ on your PC. On a tablet or phone, you can click on the single box in the top corner of the screen.

How to Organize Inventory in Minecraft?

To organize inventory in Minecraft, follow these general or specific steps in all Minecraft platforms and game modes.

1. Manually or automatically arrange your tools on the hotbar.
2. Store frequently-used items near the hotbar.
3. Group similar items together.
4. Fill one or two rows with stacks you can use or consolidate into already full stacks.
5. Unstack and sort less useful resources into shulker boxes.
6. Number your boxes for ease of searching.
7. Use the crafting book to quickly select or create items, clearing storage.
8. Use a distribute command to throw items about at random.
9. Label all chests, shulker boxes, and dispensers so you can find things quickly.

Using Hotkeys

All information applications on all devices simply press the intended button. Any inventory slot can be selected by simply pressing the number key corresponding to that slot while the player is not browsing the inventory. This action does not empty or fill crafting benches or item slots, and it does not alter the hold item. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that, for most players, hotkeys are the quickest way to select inventory slots.

Using the Crafting Table

ItemCount defines the number of materials available for use in both the 2×2 and 3×3 crafting grid, without showing storage while the player is at the workbench. The player is shown storage while at the crafting grid by selecting whatever is to be made. Similarly to inventory, the crafting grid does not need to be emptied before switching workbenches, and tools may be placed into the crafting grid at the workbench to fix them if they are damaged instead of using the inventory.

Using the Inventory Menu

The inventory screen can also be used to manage all items in the player’s inventory. To conserve resources, keep them protected by building pedestals or lighting, or prompt agent activity. This does not give the same level of visibility, nor the same advanced features as third-party inventory strain tools, but it provides a real-time visual list of how much of each item the player directly has access to.

How to Keep Inventory Safe in Minecraft?

You can keep inventory safe in Minecraft by both making the inventory screen safe and keeping containers secure. Inventory safety done through Minecraft settings is as follows:

1. Pause the game to keep your inventory safe.
2. Press escape on a Windows computer or command + q on a Mac to go to settings.
3. Set Open the inventory to a key you don’t need to move to such as CapsLock.
4. Delete Previous Slot and Next Slot so you will not accidentally select these options.

Keep in-game inventory secure from threats with the following Minecraft settings:

1. Set Toggle Cinematic Camera in key binds to a key you won’t accidentally hit during gameplay (not F8).
2. Set the <Game Mode 0> (survival) key to a key you won’t accidentally hit (not Q).
3. When you die, respawn immediately and close the game to save your inventory before drops settle.

Container security, such as the trunk of a car or storage inside your home, requires either creating a secure storage area or to make the insecure storage of items unattractive. The Bear Method is to make all of your storage containers impenetrable to easy access. Illuminate the area of securing locations with either torches or glowstone. The Quantum Method is to complexly compartmentalize your stored items into many small easily replaced storage containers of several different types. If one is raided or destroyed, multiple backups save the other items.

Storing in Chests

Minecraft inventory management often involves storing items in 112 different slots of your player’s inventory or in your pet’s inventory. But for increased organization and efficiency, simply drag and drop the item into any of the inbound slots of the 27 total that should be in your playroom’s storage chest.

Drag the item with the desired quantity from the player’s inventory to the desired slot number in the storage chest then, close the storage chest to save and keep that item stored.

Using Ender Chests

Ender chests are crafting stations which, like regular chests, can hold inventory items. The primary advantages of using ender chests in inventory management are that they are impervious to explosions, can be used to retrieve inventory in Nether and End portals, and that they provide individual custom storage that no one else has access to. Each player is effectively granted a private secure chest that they can access anywhere.

The primary disadvantages of using ender chests are that they do not allow for inventory organization, and that they are extremely expensive to craft.

Creating Hidden Storage Spaces

This is a more complicated way of keeping your inventory organized, but hidden storage spaces are beneficial to preventing item theft and making sure the valuable items are safe in case of personal equipment loss. For instance, to keep inventory safe, use an ender chest to quickly stash valuable items, then take everything else out and drop it into a pit or destroy it. To sneakily steal items, break the chest instead of the obsidian opening it, and the items will rain into your inventory and stay secure.

How to Sort Inventory in Minecraft?

It is not possible to sort inventory in Minecraft automatically, but items are organized according to certain rules. If you hold right-click and drag across the bottom to your hotbar, the inventory will try to keep items in order and slide them to the left if you have gaps. So if you put your best tools at the right side, they will move back there.

You can also quick swap your offhand item with your main hand item by pressing “F”. There is no option to manually sort items in the inventory menu. The closest you can probably get to it is to organize items to the top left, then quickly swap back and forth multiple times to see what does and doesn’t fit there, then put it in the appropriate space in the inventory.

There is no way to sort inventory in creative mode except for manually picking item types up. Creative mode allows one to have as many of every item in the game as desired at the press of an inventory key or button (depending upon which platform one is playing on). There is no space limit, so there is no need to sort as a player would in survival mode.

Using Item Frames

Item frames are the pinnacle of Minecraft inventory management and the easiest way to keep track of tools and weapons you are carrying with you. When you put something in an item frame, it is displayed for everyone to see during their wandering and includes descriptive captions.

Item frames are simple to make. Place a stick (or piece of leather) in the center of a 3×3 crafting grid and bonemeal in the eight other sections. Bonemeal is quite easy to come by so this is a very inexpensive way to get an item frame. For a more decorative item frame, you can use rods in the center.

To create an item frame, right-click (or left-trigger for Xbox) with the item in your hand while facing the block. Once an item frame is in place you can left-click (whatever button you use to attack) on it and add or remove items to it. The current item in the item frame will be displayed with an example of the assigned name (which is the item’s tag according to the colored markers we’ve added) hanging below it.

Above is an underbaked potato preserved for future replication by naming it ‘Tuber of Life’, dying it mauve to show off its healthiness, and ensuring there is always a maximum of 16 potatoes. You may need to use whatever you have available to survive while cooking the other 5.

Item frames are also useful for decoration when displaying swords, treasure and art when on static display. A torch content control system (with full/empty mobility) is another common use for these frames. Remembering that item frames are entities will keep lag minimal when using a lot of framed items in your storage.

Using Shulker Boxes

Shulker boxes are special containers capable of storing 27 inventory slots within a single inventory space. The player can store and carry an enormous amount of stuff using shulker boxes. They are portable, neat, quick, and resistant to the ‘drops all’ key.

Shulker boxes must first be obtained from End cities, treasures in desert/woodland mansions, or by trading with trading villages. Once obtained, you can organize them as needed and take them whenever you go on an adventure or travel between storage sites.

Remember, however, that if you !=organize items from the shulker box directly into an ABC storage system and destroy or misplace the shulker box, there is no way to preserve that organization. Only one shulker box can be accessed at a time and is available in Java Edition (1.11 something) and Bedrock Edition (1.1 pointsomething).

Using Sorting Systems

Using Sorting Systems to keep inventory in Minecraft involves an advanced setup to organize, store, and retrieve items. Many systems use Redstone to automatically sort items by category into Hoppers or Containers. A popular system to build is the one uses two waterfalls and merges them into one large river. An item that shows up at the input will get picked up and merged into the main pathway to the storage of the same sector or category. Keep in mind that this type of sorting and storage solution is complex and requires the player to know their specific needs in advance to build specific sorting requirements.

Once the introduction of Honey blocks, water and soul sand in Nether Worlds updated automatically sorting systems allowing for even more symmetry and speed when transporting items back and forth. A different version of the sorting system is when a player wants to build a part of a larger self-sufficient fortress. A system like this example, (watch Sky Boys take about 1 minute to go through) automatically brews potions for the player by transferring items from different points in one large factory. This allows mass production to be user-friendly and allows for much higher efficiency as they build parts of a much larger vision.

What Are the Best Inventory Management Tips for Minecraft?

The best inventory management tips for Minecraft are the following few simple changes you can make to expand your inventory (3,8):

1. Keep a double chest near your exits.
2. Have extra inventories, like a mobile storage chest or a donkey.
3. Use hoppers and/or minecarts above the chest to automate the inventory and transport of items. This is ideal to continue earning resources while you explore deep cave systems or if your base is not by your mines. Get a Minecraft map (Map items do not have any explicit storage, the in-hand display is better in buildings et cetera) to improve in single player via a simple, non-intrusive mod or phone app and maintain maps of important aboveground locations. Use (Q) to slow down the time for there to be less hordes of items lying around.

Labeling Chests

Storage cubes in Minecraft are useful for storing items and sorting out one’s inventory system. But as you accumulate more, distinguishing and remembering which items are located in which storage item might become difficult. To combat this, players should consider organizing them based on certain strategies.

One such strategy involves labeling chests. This is not explicit functionality in Minecraft as it is with barrels. However, when a chest or other storage cube has an item inside it that is renamed with an anvil and then placed in it, that label will be shown to players when they mouse over the cube and can help with organization of the items you have.

There is also a variety of mods for Minecraft which can help with this, such as the Neat Mod which among other interfaces adds a window showing the contents of linked chests. Avid players can even consider using the Electroblob’s Wizardry Mod which lets players conjure an inventory bag. This can get around the traditional crafting limitations of earlier chests by providing additional storage to be automatically deposited into.

Keeping Similar Items Together

Another tip for organizing your inventory in Minecraft is to keep similar items together. There are certain types of items in Minecraft that follow a similar purpose and sort of go together such as:

1. Non-weapon tools which includes tools such as the pick, shovel, and axe. It is much easier to not mistakenly pick the wrong tool if you organize them next to one another.
2. Food and drink items. Players can consider these very important when they need to restore their health during an emergency. Reviewing all easy-to-access food is simple if it is grouped together in the inventory.
3. Self-protection gear such as armor and shields. The player can choose which ones they wish to equip much more quickly if the similar items are grouped together in inventory.
4. Blocks players are not going to use, such as different colored wool or granite or cobblestone. Putting similar items together can help reduce the amount of time players are digging through the entire inventory looking for that one stack of 64 diamond ore or that one stack of 2 magma cream.

The video below shows organization tips for similar blocks on Mythical Sausage’s YouTube channel entitled Tools & Armor Stations – Minecraft Builds.

Utilizing Shulker Boxes

Shulker boxes are able to store 27 slots of 64 items – 1728 items total, or 19404 items when combined with regular storage systems. They are easily transportable portable storage which allows items to be safely stored in stacks of up to 64 when jogging between various points of storage.

To use shulker boxes one crafts one portable container by surrounding one shulker shell obtained by killing a shulkers (imitation of shulkers mentioned in the new-GOA constitution released on ethe deal by the cultural ministry of the government of Goa) which sustained damage after changing color with either a regular chest or another shulker chest. One then places items to be stored in the container and can manually move them to other stashes or just move the shulker boxes between them. Unstacking large amounts of items on a server’s central frame in a location with paid electricity cost is against frugality principles, but if one chooses to do so, one shulker costs one shulker box and two shulker shells (two dead shulkers) for a total of nine diamonds in an initial cost.

Regularly Cleaning Inventory

Regularly cleaning inventory is among the key ways to manage inventory in Minecraft. Cleaning is the act of going through your inventories to get rid of anything you do not actually need. This is important because Minecraft inventories can become cluttered with items that are no use to the player.

To clean, players simply drop blocks of unidentified items on the ground (which may require destroying them if they cannot be dropped directly), making them available to pick up later if needed. Garbage items in the inventory can be thrown away (or dropped somewhere randomly). Garbage can be defined as items the user is unlikely to use or unable to use in the near future, as well as items that can easily be acquired again if needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does keeping inventory in Minecraft mean?

Keeping inventory in Minecraft means that when you die, you will not lose any items in your inventory or hotbar.

How do I enable keeping inventory in Minecraft?

To enable keeping inventory in Minecraft, you can either use cheats or change the game rule “keepInventory” to true. This can be done by typing “/gamerule keepInventory true” in the chat or using the command block.

Can I turn off keeping inventory in Minecraft?

Yes, you can turn off keeping inventory in Minecraft by using cheats or changing the game rule “keepInventory” to false. This will make it so that you lose all items in your inventory and hotbar upon death.

Will keeping inventory in Minecraft affect my gameplay?

Yes, keeping inventory in Minecraft can affect your gameplay as it reduces the risk of losing valuable items upon death. This can make the game easier and less challenging for some players.

Is keeping inventory in Minecraft available in all game modes?

No, keeping inventory in Minecraft is only available in certain game modes such as Creative mode or if you have enabled cheats. In Survival mode, keeping inventory is not enabled by default.

Can I change the game rule “keepInventory” during gameplay?

Yes, you can change the game rule “keepInventory” during gameplay by using cheats or command blocks. This can be useful if you want to switch between keeping inventory on and off while playing.