Eye of Ender

An Eye of Ender (or Ender Eye) is a craftable item used to locate and activate End portals within Strongholds.

Obtaining
Besides crafting, Eyes of Ender can also be obtained by trading with Priest villagers, and usually cost between seven and ten emeralds each.

Usage


Eyes of Ender can be used to locate and activate End Portals, or to craft an Ender Chest.

To locate End Portals (and the Strongholds that house them):
 * When held and right-clicked, an Eye of Ender will fly in the direction of the nearest End Portal, traveling through any blocks necessary, and leave a trail of purple particles in its wake. In the Xbox 360 Edition and "Playstation 3 Edition", a thrown eye will lead to a stronghold, but not exactly to an end portal frame.
 * While far away from an End Portal, the Eye always travels upwards to offer an easily-visible indication of the horizontal direction the player must travel.
 * When the player gets close to the End Portal's horizontal coordinates, the Eye floats in a more precise direction that takes the y-axis into account. This often means the Eye will travel downwards, to indicate the player is above a Portal and must mine downwards.
 * After two or three seconds of travel, the Eye floats in the air briefly, then either falls (becoming collectable again), or shatters in mid-air. The Eye has a 1:5 chance of shattering.

Tip: One effective means of finding End Portals is to triangulate their location by throwing eyes from a few locations.

Once an End Portal is found, Eyes of Ender will also be required in order to activate it. End Portals require a total of 12 Eyes of Ender in order to activate, though they will generally already contain 1-5 Eyes naturally. Eyes can be placed in empty End Portal frame blocks by right-clicking on them until the entire ring of 12 is filled, thereby activating the Portal.

Trivia

 * If the world is generated with the "Generate structures" option disabled, the Eye of Ender will lead you to the place where the Stronghold would have been generated.
 * The Eye of Ender's right-click function only works in the Overworld in normal worlds. It does nothing in the Nether, the End, or in Superflat worlds, as there are no Strongholds in those places. If the Superflat world has strongholds in its preset, the ender eye will lead to them.
 * When in 3rd person view, the Eyes of Ender go out of The Player's forehead instead of from their hand.
 * When thrown, it makes the same sound as throwing a Snowball or an Egg.