Options

Minecraft's user environment can be configured through the Options setting. A few additional options can be changed only by editing the options.txt file manually.

Java Edition

Options

Selecting Options brings up the main options page:

Option	Description
FOV	Controls how much of the game world is visible on the screen. Also known as Field of View. Ranges from 30° to 110° (Quake Pro)
Difficulty	Set the difficulty level from the choice of Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. If the padlock is clicked and confirmed, the difficulty on that world cannot be changed without commands. (Note that the difficulty cannot be changed if playing Hardcore Mode. On a server, difficulty can be changed only by commands or editing the server.properties file.)

Skin customization

Skin Customization Setting	Description
Cape	Toggles the cape. If set to off, the cape texture for wearing a pair of Elytra would also be deactivated.
Jacket	Toggles the body second layer.
Left Sleeve	Toggles the left arm second layer.
Right Sleeve	Toggles the right arm second layer.
Left Pants Leg	Toggles the left leg second layer.
Right Pants Leg	Toggles the right leg second layer.
Hat	Toggles the head second layer.
Main Hand	Switches the main hand, between left and right. Right is default.

Music & sounds

Sound Setting	Description
Master Volume	The volume of all sounds.
Music	The volume of gameplay music.
Weather	The volume of rain and thunder.
Hostile Creatures	The volume of hostile and neutral mobs.
Players	The volume of players (item plops, hurt sounds, etc.).
Jukebox/Noteblocks	The volume of music and sounds played from Jukeboxes and Note Blocks.
Blocks	The volume of blocks (anvils, chests, doors, etc.).
Friendly Creatures	The volume of passive mobs.
Ambient/Environment	The volume of Ambience, sound of entering/exiting water and fireworks.
Voice/Speech	The volume of speech in Minecraft (for map makers)

Video settings

Video Setting	Description
Graphics	Fancy enables higher quality graphic effects. Graphic effects include transparent leaves, increased rain particles, a black vignette around the screen in darker areas, and the world border red warning vignette effect. Fast disables those effects for better performance.
Render Distance	The render distance controls how many chunks of the world are visible at once. The fewer chunks that are included, the faster each frame can be rendered, resulting in higher frames per second (FPS). In single-player, this also affects the number of chunks that are ticked, so a lower value provides a higher FPS. The most distant terrain is faded into the sky color as if by fog, to avoid a sharp edge to the visible world; so this option is also known as "fog". On 64-bit Java installs, this option defaults to 12; on 32-bit installs it defaults to 8. The maximum value is 32 for 64-bit Java installs with at least 1 gigabyte of memory, and 16 in all other cases. Note: diameter = radius × 2 + 1 Name View distance (radius) Total count Blocks Chunks Sections 32 chunks ("Extreme") 512 4225 67,600 31 chunks 496 3969 63,504 30 chunks 480 3721 59,536 29 chunks 464 3481 55,696 28 chunks 448 3249 51,984 27 chunks 432 3025 48,400 26 chunks 416 2809 44,944 25 chunks 400 2601 41,616 24 chunks 384 2401 38,416 23 chunks 368 2209 35,344 22 chunks 352 2025 32,400 21 chunks 336 1849 29,584 20 chunks 320 1681 26,896 19 chunks 304 1521 24,336 18 chunks 288 1369 21,904 17 chunks 272 1225 19,600 16 chunks ("Far") 256 1089 17,424 15 chunks 240 961 15,376 14 chunks 224 841 13,456 13 chunks 208 729 11,664 12 chunks (default) 192 625 10,000 11 chunks 176 529 8464 10 chunks 160 441 7056 9 chunks 144 361 5776 8 chunks ("Normal") 128 289 4624 7 chunks 112 225 3600 6 chunks 96 169 2704 5 chunks 80 121 1936 4 chunks ("Short") 64 81 1296 3 chunks 48 49 784 2 chunks ("Tiny") 32 25 400
Smooth Lighting	Lighting is smoothed across the blocks (ambient occlusion) or each block has a distinctive light level. This setting does not change the gameplay in any way, but it has a slight effect on performance.
Max Framerate	Limits the FPS. Limiting the framerate to a multiple of the player monitor's refresh rate can save processing power.
View Bobbing	Toggles the "bobbing" motion of the camera as the player is walking. Disabling it may increase performance.
GUI Scale	Controls the GUI (Graphical User Interface) scale. This also controls the HUD (Heads Up Display) size. Note that the options available to the player depends on the game resolution: it goes only up to 4 if playing at 1080p, for example.
Clouds	Fancy causes the clouds to be rendered in 3D. Fast causes the clouds to be rendered flat. OFF causes no clouds to be rendered.
Brightness	Dims down or lights up the game's surfaces, even if fully dark. It has no effect on gameplay, it is a visual effect. Works in any dimension and affects the Night Vision status effect.
Particles	Allows particles effects such as sprinting particles, falling particles and particles from lava and water drips. Block breaking particles are not affected. In "Minimal" particle setting, rain is silent and hearts appearing around mobs in Love Mode do not appear.
Fullscreen	Puts Minecraft into Fullscreen mode, keeping it off keeps it in a window. Can also be changed with F11.
Use VSync	Limits the player's frames per second to the screen's refresh rate, which is usually 60 Hz, 75 Hz on some CRT screens, or 120 to 144 Hz on some gaming-targeted screens. Enabling VSync fixes tearing, but increases input latency and causes stuttering if one's computer cannot draw enough frames per second.
Mipmap Levels	The higher the level, the more the textures look "smooth".
Use VBOs	Toggles vertex buffer objects. As of 18w44a, VBOs are always used, and as such, this is no longer an option.
Entity Shadows	Determines whether entities display simple shadows.
Attack Indicator	OFF No attack indicator renders. Crosshair A little gray translucent bar appears below the crosshair displaying attack power. Hotbar A little gray sword bar appears on the side of the hotbar (on the same side as the player's main hand) displaying attack power.
Fullscreen Resolution	Sets the resolution of the game when playing in fullscreen.
Biome Blend	Sets a radius for all biomes.

Controls

Main article: Controls

From the main Options page, one can click down to Controls for configuring keyboard controls. There are a few additional settings:

Video Setting	Description
Invert Mouse	Whether the mouse should be inverted vertically.
Sensitivity	Mouse sensitivity factor.
Touchscreen mode	Enables touchscreen mode, which makes buttons react properly to multiple mouse-down events.
Auto-Jump	Enables automatically jumping when the player passes near a wall.

Language

Main article: Language

Allows players to change the language that is viewed by their client.

Option	Description
Force Unicode font	ON Unicode Font OFF ASCII Font

Chat settings

Option	Description
Chat	Shown enables the player's ability to see the chat on a server. Commands Only allows the player to see only the output of commands in the chat. Hidden hides the chat on all servers.
Colors	ON allows the player to see the chat in many different colors. OFF disables this function and allows the player to see the chat only in a light gray color.
Web Links	ON allows the player to see URLs and other links in the chat. OFF disables this function and blocks all URLs and other links.
Opacity	The opacity of the chat.
Prompt on Links	ON forces a prompt to appear on the player's screen whenever they click on a URL to makes sure that they wish to exit Minecraft and head to the website. OFF turns the prompt off.
Scale	How large the chat is shown.
Focused Height	The max height that the chat is allowed to appear when in focus (chat input and history open).
Unfocused Height	The max height that the chat is allowed to appear normally (chat input and history closed).
Width	The max width that the chat may appear.
Reduced Debug Info	Toggles reduced information on the debug screen.

Server options

Option	Description
Server Resource Packs	Allows Minecraft to download resource packs from the server.

Resource packs

Allows the player to change their resource pack settings.

Accessibility settings

Option	Description
Narrator	Toggles whether the narrator narrates all text, text in chat only, or text in menus only.
Show Subtitles	Toggles whether subtitles are shown.
Text Background Opacity	The opacity of the background behind text.
Text Background	Toggles whether the background behind text is restricted to chat or used everywhere.
Opacity	The opacity of the chat.
Auto-Jump	Enables automatically jumping when the player passes near a wall.
Sneak	Sneak. ‌[upcoming: 1.15]
Sprint	Sprint. ‌[upcoming: 1.15]

• 

  The default main options menu.

• 

  The default skin customization options menu.

• 

  The default video options menu.

• 

  The default language options menu.

• 

  The default resource packs options menu.

• 

  The default music and sound options menu.

• 

  The default controls options menu.

• 

  The default chat options menu.

• 

  The default mouse options menu.

• 

  The default accessibility options menu.

Bedrock Edition

Game

Option	Description
Username	Changes the player's public username (locked if signed in to Realms; can be changed through Xbox Live).
Sound Volume	Choose the level of sound volume.
Difficulty	Select difficulty (Total of 4 Difficulties, same as Java Edition).
Third person view	Toggles third person view.
Multiplayer Game	Allow users to join the server.
Broadcast to LAN	Allow local users to join the server.
Broadcast to Xbox Live	Allow friends from Xbox Live to the join the server
Use Experimental Gameplay	Enable beta features. If enable it in a created world, a copy is created with "[EX]" before the world name. This feature cannot be disabled once it is enabled for a world and any progress is not saved to the original world.

Controls

Option	Description
Sensitivity	Changes the sensitivity of the camera when turning.
Invert Y-Axis	Toggles inversion of camera when looking up/down.
Lefty	Toggles the D-pad being on the left/right side of the screen.
Split controls	Chooses whether to use the touchscreen to interact throughout the screen or use a crosshair.
Swap Jump and Sneak	Chooses whether to swap the position of jump and sneak buttons.
Button size	Changes the size of the buttons. Smaller buttons allow extra slots for the hotbar.
Auto Jump	Toggles the auto-jump feature.
Keyboard Layout	Chooses the keyboard layout to use.
Controller Layout	Changes the action of buttons when pressed in a controller.

Feedback

Option	Description
Destroy block (vibrate)	Toggles vibration when destroying blocks. (Android only).

Graphics

Option	Description
Brightness	Adjusts the brightness of the game.
Render Distance	Changes the render distance of the terrain, and also affects the render distance of foliage such as transparent leaves, crops and animated textures. Available in 2-10 sections on the slider, ranging from 5-150 chunks (depending on the device).
FOV	Changes the field of view.
View Bobbing	Chooses whether to show the bobbing when walking.
Fancy Graphics	Toggles fancy graphics. Note that clouds on fast graphics remain volumetric but become opaque.
Fancy Leaves	Toggles transparent leaves.
Particle Render Distance	Controls the maximum distance that particles can be seen, such as TNT explosions.
Beautiful skies	Toggles the sun, moon, clouds, stars and sky color.
Smooth lighting	Toggles smooth lighting.
Animated water	Toggles animated texture for water, lava and fire.
Anti Aliasing	Toggles the amount of anti aliasing, which smooths the image and removes jagged edges. 2x MSAA 4x MSAA 8x MSAA
Texel Anti Aliasing	Applies anti aliasing to the textures withing the blocks, giving them a smoother look.

Experimental

Option	Description
Hide GUI	Toggles if the HUD is displayed.
Limit worlds	Toggles whether a world is infinite or compressed to a 256x256 block area (Available only on supported low-end devices).
UI Profile	Changes the game UI style between classic (desktop UI) and Pocket UI.

Legacy Console Edition

Option	Description
Change Skin	Allows users to change into a skin of their choosing, provided that it was already bought beforehand.
How To Play	Gives the player information on the basics of Minecraft, such as the controls, basic crafting recipes, and how to survive the player's first night.
Credits	Opens the credits.

Controls

Main article: Controls

A few settings are shown.

Video setting	Description
Reset to Defaults	Resets the controls to their original configuration.
Invert Look	Toggles inversion of camera when looking up and down.
Southpaw	Toggles a swap of the left and right analog controls.

Settings

Pressing "Reset to Defaults" resets all settings to their original configuration.

Game options

Video setting	Description
Vertical Splitscreen	Toggles whether splitscreen should be vertical or horizontal.
Auto Jump	Enables automatically jumping when the player touches a block from the side.
View Bobbing	Toggles the "bobbing" motion of the camera as the player is walking.
Flying View Rolling
Hints	Toggles whether hints are shown in-game.
Death Messages	Toggles whether death messages are shown.
Game Sensitivity	The higher the percentage, the more sensitive the controls are.

Audio

Video setting	Description
Music	The volume of gameplay music.
Sound	The volume of all sounds.
Cave Sounds	Toggles whether cave sounds play.
Minecart Sounds	Toggles whether minecart sounds play.

Graphics

Video setting	Description
Render Clouds	Toggles whether clouds are rendered.
Custom Skin Animation	Toggles whether custom skin animations render.
Gamma	The higher the gamma, the brighter the image.

User interface

Video setting	Description
Display HUD	Toggles whether the HUD is displayed in-game.
Display Hand	Toggles whether the hand is displayed in-game.
Display Game Messages	Toggles whether game messages are shown upon loading a world.
Display Save Icon	Toggles whether the save icon is displayed upon saving the game, whether manually or automatically.
Interface Opacity	The opacity of the interface.
In-Game Tooltips	Toggles whether tooltips are shown.
Animated Character	Toggles whether an animated character is shown in the top left.
Interface Sensitivity	The higher the number, the more sensitive the interface is.
In-Game user's Mii	Toggles whether a user's Mii displays as their nickname.‌[Wii U and Nintendo Switch editions only]
Splitscreen Nicknames	Toggles whether nicknames are shown in splitscreen.
Classic Crafting	Toggles whether classic crafting is used.
HUD Size	The size of the HUD.
HUD Size (Splitscreen)	Same as above, but for splitscreen.

Render distance

Render distance varies depending on device and the number of players on the same console. Note that the implementation of fog is different on console, giving the appearance of a higher render distance at the cost of pop in.

Console	Render distance
	1P Mode	2P Mode	3P Mode	4P Mode
PS4	18 chunks	12 chunks	10 chunks	9 chunks
Xbox One
PS3	10 chunks	7 chunks	6 chunks	5 chunks
Xbox 360
Wii U
Switch (Docked)
Switch (Handheld)	7 chunks	5 chunks	4 chunks	3 chunks
PS Vita	5 chunks	N/A	N/A	N/A

Host privileges

Main article: Host privileges

Legacy Console Edition game options screen.

Host Privileges enable players to change world options. It is equivalent to enabling Cheats on the Java/Bedrock/Education Edition. Note: Enabling this option makes achievements and trophies be disabled permanently on the world. Host privileges enable the host to change weather, gamemode, teleport, fly, become invisible, disable exhaustion and change gamerules (daylight and weather cycle, keep inventory, mob spawning, mob griefing).

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

Option	Description
Patch Notes	Shows the latest patch notes available
Select Language	Allows the user to select the language
Credits	Opens the credits

Controls

Video setting	Description
Sensitivity	The higher the bar, the more sensitive the controls are.
Auto Jump	Enables automatically jumping when the player passes near a wall.
Invert Y-Axis	Toggles inversion of camera when looking up and down.

Graphics

Video setting	Description
Brightness	The higher the brightness, the brighter the image.
View Bobbing	Toggles the "bobbing" motion of the camera as the player is walking.

Sound

Video setting	Description
Sound Volume	The volume of all sounds.
Music	The volume of gameplay music.

Video

Note: This video dates from release Java Edition 1.5, and so does not show all options currently available.

History

Java Edition Classic
0.0.12a					New fog distance option.
					Pressing F cycles between four levels of render distance.
0.0.23a					Added the options page.
					New custom keymappings.
Java Edition Beta
1.3					Smooth lighting was added.
1.8		?			The Brightness setting was added, teased earlier that July.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			The Clouds setting was added (however, texture packs were able to remove them before this option was introduced).
1.3.1		12w21a			The options menu was improved with a new "Chat Settings" menu.
1.4.2		12w34a			Added new Full-screen toggle to the Video settings.
					Added new use Vsync toggle in the Video settings.
1.4.6		pre			Added an option to toggle touchscreen mode.
1.5		13w09b			Moved Texture Packs setting from the main menu to the options menu.
1.7.2		13w36a			The options menu was revamped, including a brand new layout, new key binds and a "Super Secret Settings" button in the menu.
		13w36b			The "Super Secret Settings" button now plays a random sound when clicked.
		13w38a			The "Super Secret Settings" button now creates a shader effect on the game's display, in the following order: FXAA, Art, Bumpy, Blobs_2, Pencil, Color_Convolve, Deconverge, Flip, Invert, NTSC, Outline, Phosphor, Scan_Pincushion, Sobel, Bits, Desaturate, Green, Blur, Wobble, Blobs, Antialias, Default.
					Replaced the render distance "cycle" button with a slider ranging from 2 to 16 chunks.
					Added a max framerate slider option.
					Added mipmapping and anisotropic filtering.
1.7.4		13w47a			Added "Twitch Broadcast Settings" and "Twitch Chat Settings" buttons.
1.7.6		pre1			Server Resource Packs option is now per-server, and has three settings: Prompt, Enabled, and Disabled.
					The minimum FOV setting is now 30 rather than 70.
1.8		?			The render distance slider now goes to 32 on machines running 64-bit Java with at least 1 gigabyte of available memory.
		14w25a			Dropped items now always render in 3D, rather then just while on fancy graphics
1.8.1		pre4			The option to enable entity shadows is now controlled separately from the standard fast and fancy graphics.
					The cloud's "fast" and "fancy" shape are controlled by the same option that enables clouds, rather then by the standard fast and fancy graphics.
1.9		15w31a			Removed "Super Secret Settings" and "Broadcast Settings".
					Removed Alternate Blocks from video settings.
					Added "Main Hand" to the skin settings.
		15w34a			Added "Attack Indicator" to the video settings.
		16w02a			Added "Voice/Speech" to the music & sound settings.
May 25, 2018					Removed "Snooper Settings" in order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation.
1.13		17w43a			Removed "3D Anaglyph" from video settings.
					Added an option to change the full-screen resolution.
		17w47a			Options when editing a world to make a backup and open the backups folder.
					An option in chat settings to toggle automatic command suggestions (defaults on, otherwise hit tab to bring them up).
		pre6			Removed "force unicode font" option.
		pre8			Re-added "force unicode font" option.
		pre10			Option Fullscreen resolution capitalization changed to Fullscreen Resolution.
1.14		18w44a			Removed "Use VBOs" from video settings. VBOs are now always used.
		19w11a			Added "Accessibility Settings".
		19w11b			Added "Auto-Jump" to accessibility settings.
1.15		19w41a			Added Sprint and Sneak Toggle to accessibility settings.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.2.1					Added split screen option.
0.4.0					Added option for peaceful mode.
0.7.0					Redesigned options menu. There are now four sections in the menu, game, controls, graphics, and sound.
0.8.0		build 2			Removed option for smooth lighting. It is now always on. When it was reimplemented is unknown.
					Added far (256 blocks) and farthest (400 blocks) render distances. Default is now far.
					By default, fancy graphics is now on.
0.9.3					View distance on Android is no longer limited to 3 sliders.
0.10.0		build 1			Added the brightness slider. It is located in the graphics menu.
0.11.0		build 1			Worlds can now be renamed.
					Gamemode can be changed in the world edit menu.
					On creative mode worlds the daylight cycle can be locked to day.
0.12.1		build 1			Added option to swap jump and sneak.
0.13.0		build 1			Multiplayer can now be disabled in the options menu.
0.13.1					Removed sound section in the options menu. The volume slider is now in the Game section.
					On the title screen the options icon is no longer a wrench.
					Made the options icon slightly bigger.
0.16.0		build 1			Redesigned options screen.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Added an option to change UI profiles between classic and pocket UI.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Classic UI now repositions the health, hunger, oxygen and armor bars to above the hotbar instead of the top of the screen, making it like Java edition and Legacy console edition.

See also

• Heads-up display
• Third person view
• Debug screen
• Host privileges