Inventory

The inventory is the pop-up menu that the player uses to manage items they carry. From this screen a player can equip armor, craft items on a 2x2 grid, and equip tools and blocks. Also displayed here is the player's custom Minecraft skin.

The default key for opening and closing the inventory was "I" in Beta 1.3_01 and below, but was changed to "E" in Beta 1.4 because Notch found it to be much more efficient. This binding can be changed from the in-game options menu. The inventory can also be closed with the "Esc" key.

The inventory consists of 4 armor slots, 27 storage slots, and 9 hotkey slots. Items in the hotkey slots can be selected during play using the keyboard (keys 1-9) or mousewheel, and placed or wielded with the mouse buttons. In Alpha, the player could place items in the 2x2 crafting grid and they would stay there when the inventory was closed, but this has been removed as of the Beta release: items placed in the crafting grid are now dropped simultaneously when the inventory is closed.

Some items stack, up to a maximum of 64 in one slot. Blocks are stackable but tools (with the exception of the fishing rod) and food are not. Snowballs and eggs are special and can only stack up to 16, and Cookies can only stack up to 8.

To split a stack, right click the stack. This leaves half the stack on the square and allows you to move the other half. Conversely, while holding a stack in the inventory, right click can be used to place just one item anywhere on the inventory grid.

Items can be dropped into the world by clicking outside the inventory window while holding items, or by closing the inventory with items either held or placed in the 2x2 crafting grid. Items dropped in the game world will disappear after 5 minutes if not collected, but items placed using the right mouse button will not. Chests can be used to extend your inventory space, but they must be placed in the game world before they can be used.

Armor is only considered equipped when it is in an armor slot; when in any of the regular inventory slots, it is not considered "worn" and does not offer protection.

As of Alpha 1.1.0, inventory is now saved on multiplayer servers, so that players' personal inventory, chests, etc. are now saved when you leave, allowing the players to continue where they left off.

Also, as of the Beta 1.0 release, items now have tooltips displaying their name if the cursor is hovered over the item.