Shulker Box

A shulker box is a block that can store and transport items.

Breaking
Shulker boxes can be mined with any tool or by hand, but using a pickaxe is the most effective. Shulker boxes drop themselves when mined. Unlike other containers, the contents of shulker boxes are stored within the dropped item, and not dropped separately. When instantly mined in Creative mode, shulker boxes drop as an item if there are items stored within, unless is set to "false".

Usage


A shulker box has 27 inventory slots, the same as a chest.

Shulker boxes are portable chests: they keep their items when broken, which can be retrieved when placed again. This is different from other containers, which drop their contained items as item entities when broken. A shulker box drops itself as an item if pushed by pistons or destroyed by an explosion. Unlike most blocks with inventory, shulker boxes always drop themselves when destroyed by explosions. When a shulker box with items inside is being held or is in a container's inventory, the items are listed on the tooltip as properties.



A shulker box's items can be fed or removed by a hopper.

Shulker boxes can be stored in all containers except for other shulker boxes and bundles.

When placed on a wall or ceiling, shulker boxes face and open sideways or upside-down, respectively. Shulker boxes cannot be opened if a solid opaque block is on their top surface, similar to a chest. For example, if a shulker box is facing upside-down and a solid opaque block is below it, the shulker box cannot be opened. A shulker box can also be placed using dispensers.

Like a chest, a shulker box requires a transparent area above to be opened, and it opens only if the hitbox of the top of the open shulker box does not intersect with another hitbox. This way, a shulker box can be opened with an upside-down slab or an upper trapdoor on top of it. It is also unique in that when opened, its hitbox expands to 1.5 blocks high/wide, physically pushing entities where it is facing.

By default, the GUI of a shulker box is labeled "Shulker Box", which can be changed by naming it in an anvil or by changing the  tag using the  command.

When a shulker box item is destroyed, the contents of the shulker box are dropped as items.

Undyeing
Dyed shulker boxes can be undyed using a cauldron. To do this, a dyed shulker box on a cauldron that has water in it. This causes the cauldron's water level to decrease by 1, and the shulker box loses its dye color.

Piglins
Piglins become hostile toward players who open or mine shulker boxes.

Unique




ID




Block data
A shulker box has a block entity associated with it that identifies its contents.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Block entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Block entity format.

Item data


Shulker boxes, as items, use an NBT tag  to indicate the contents and details of the box when it is placed.

''The following NBT structure is provided to show how the  tag is organized, and is not comprehensive above the   tag. The full NBT for an item can be found here.''


 * Entity data
 * : The item
 * : Additional information about the item. This tag is optional for most items.
 * : The details of the shulker box.
 * All block data, except tags common to all block entities.


 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Item format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Item format.

Trivia

 * With 37 shulker boxes in a player's inventory, hotbar, and off-hand slot, 999 stacks of up to 64 items (up to 63,936 total items; 63,973 if counting shulker boxes themselves) can be held. With 37 shulker boxes and an ender chest with 27 shulker boxes in one of the shulker box slots, 1,727 stacks (up to 110,528 items; 1,728 stacks with up to 110,592 items if counting stacked ender chests) can be held.
 * When the camera is far enough from a shulker box, the shulker box is invisible, even though it is still within the render distance, this is because the shulker box is still considered a mob.