Java Edition removed features

Since the beginning of Minecraft's development, there have been a number of features that were removed from the game. These features may have been replaced, or a developer decided against the feature later on.

Note that this page only documents game features that were removed; features of a particular game element that were removed are noted in that element's history. See unused features for features that are still currently in the game.

Horse saddle


Horse Saddles were items that were added in snapshot 13w16a during the development of 1.6.1, along with horses that worked just like regular saddles, but for horses instead of pigs. Taming a horse was required before putting a horse saddle on it. The horse saddle was craftable using the following recipe:

The item ID used was 416, which refers to the armor stand in current versions.

Horse saddle items were later removed from the game in 13w18a, and normal saddles are now used for both pigs and horses.

Infinite water source


The infinite water source was a block that would create infinite water, which would replicate infinitely to fill up volumes. They were added originally in Indev (January 24, 2010) to allow for infinite lakes on floating maps.

It was available as block ID 52, until it was replaced with the monster spawner in Infdev Seecret Friday 2 (June 25, 2010).

Infinite lava source


Similar to the infinite water source, the infinite lava source was a block that created infinite lava which would replicate infinitely to fill up volumes. It was also added in Indev (January 24, 2010).

It was available as block ID 53, until it was replaced with oak stairs in Alpha 1.0.0 (June 28, 2010).



Locked chest
Locked chests were an April Fools block. Pressing on the chest would bring up a screen, and clicking on the "Go to Store" button would forward you to the "Minecraft Store".

Powered comparator
During the development for 1.5, the comparator at first used two separate block IDs to represent its powered and unpowered states, with names  and , and numeric IDs 149 and 150 respectively. As of 13w05a, the  block was removed from use in the game, replaced by a powered block state on the   block. It can still be placed using, though it will not function, and will transform into an   block if its facing side is powered, then unpowered.

Reverted potions
Before the 1.9 snapshot 15w31a, potions had a form known as "reverted". In the inventory, reverted potions looked identical to their base potion, much like mundane and mundane (extended), and their usage was also identical to their base potions, with the exception of turning into reverted potions rather than base potions. The only difference was data values.

There were two general methods to create reverted potions, one of which involved the addition of fermented spider eyes. Reversion, in general, referenced changing a longer, upgraded potion into its original weaker potion (for example, changing from a potion of poison (extended) into a potion of harming (reverted) by adding fermented spider eye).
 * The first method involved adding glowstone (typically) to an already upgraded tertiary potion. Since these tertiary potions have already been modified with redstone (typically), they could be changed to their original (revert) unmodified states depending on which modifier was added previously. Not all potions could be reverted (or react, for that matter) when glowstone powder or redstone dust was added to an upgraded tertiary potion (for example, adding redstone to an already redstone-extended potion did not yield a new potion).
 * The second method involved the addition of fermented spider eyes, followed by glowstone (usually). Method two worked by adding fermented spider eye to an extended positive potion (i.e. an extended tertiary potion). In almost all cases, this would corrupt the potion and produce a negative potion of equal strength (in this case, extended). Then, glowstone (depending on the recipe) was added to the extended negative potion. Since these negative tertiary potions (regardless of origin) have already been modified with redstone, the addition of glowstone would revert the potion to a potion of lesser duration.

A good example of this process at work is the reversion of the potion of weakness. A potion of weakness can be made two ways. The first method is by adding fermented spider eye to a mundane potion (water bottle + ghast tear/glistering melon/blaze powder/magma cream/sugar/spider eye), then adding redstone to produce potion of weakness (extended). The second method is by adding (again) fermented spider eye to either a potion of strength or a potion of regeneration. Potions of strength and regeneration, in their base or extended forms, will produce potions of weakness with equal magnitude (for the sake of this example, fermented spider eye is added to potion of strength (extended) to produce potion of weakness (extended)).

Now, there should be two Potions of Weakness (4:00). Glowstone dust could be added to the Potion of Weakness (Ext) which reverted the potion into a normal duration (1:30) Potion of Weakness. The act of reducing the duration from 4:00 to 1:30 was reversion.

Cat spawn egg
The cat spawn egg was added in 1.10 in snapshot 16w20a with a lot of other spawn eggs. It spawned wild ocelots with tamed cat skins. Then in snapshot 1.10-pre2 all spawn eggs added in 16w20a (except the polar bear spawn egg) were removed. Then in 1.11 snapshot 16w32a all spawn eggs removed in 1.10-pre2 were re-added – except for the cat spawn egg.

Rose


The rose was removed from the computer edition in 1.7.2 snapshot 13w36a, from the Pocket Edition in Alpha 0.9.0 and from the Console Edition partially in and fully in. In both cases, the rose was simply replaced by the poppy as a wild flower which gives a red dye, though in the Console Edition it was still named 'rose', until in the versions of console known as.

Blocks previously obtainable as items
for a full list of unobtainable blocks

The game prevents certain blocks from being obtained through normal gameplay methods, such as crafting, the creative inventory, the pick block key, and the silk touch enchantment. It also prevents such blocks from being given through less legitimate methods, such as inventory hacking, mods, and commands. Until release versions 1.7.2 and 1.8, there had been a wide variety of blocks that could be hacked into the inventory; over time, however, the game was developed so that these blocks became entirely unavailable, even through hacking.

Currently, the game only accepts name IDs (such as ) in most commands, and uses only name IDs when assigning blocks to the inventory and save files. The old method of obtaining a block via numerical IDs is no longer an option. In addition, the game automatically removes blocks with illegitimate name IDs from the inventory, so using inventory editors is also no longer an option. Furthermore, certain blocks such as  cannot be obtained in their block form; however, since the game has a corresponding item named , the item form is given instead.

Obtainable until 1.7.2
In snapshot 13w37a, the command was modified so that it would notify the name of the item in chat. Due to this, 26 blocks were made unavailable:

Air block
The air block was briefly available as an item during 1.7.2 snapshot 13w38b, while Grum had been redefining the code that represented air in-game. This availability only lasted for one snapshot, as it was the focus of several bugs.

Obtainable until 1.8
In snapshot 14w25a, changes were made to the way the icons of items were rendered, and the way block data was internally represented. Due to this, 12 blocks were made unavailable:

Obtainable until 1.9
In snapshot 15w49a, 1 block was made unavailable:

Chain armor
Since shortly after their introduction in Indev, and until snapshot 14w25a for release 1.8, chain armor was craftable using fire. As of that snapshot, fire can no longer exist as an inventory item, even with inventory hacking, and the recipe itself was removed from the game's registry of recipes.

Chain armor may still be obtained in other ways.

Enchanted golden apple
Since their introduction in 1.3.1, and until snapshot 15w44a for release 1.9, enchanted golden apples had a crafting recipe: an apple surrounded by 8 gold blocks. However on the Pocket Edition and Console Edition the Enchanted golden apples are craftable.

Enchanted golden apples may still be obtained in other ways.

Horse Armor
In the 13w16a snapshot of 1.6.1 a crafting recipe for horse armor was added. In snapshot 13w18a, the crafting recipe was removed.

Leather horse armor was added to the Pocket Edition just over three years later, and had a still usable but different crafting recipe.

Brick pyramid


Brick pyramids were large structures that generated far away from the spawn point. These pyramids were completely solid; they had no interior rooms. A strange quality about these pyramids is that layers of dirt and stone extended under the pyramid. This suggests that it generated directly on top of the terrain instead of being a complete pyramid with the bottom underground (such as desert temples). Pyramids were removed in later versions of Infdev.

Obsidian wall
Obsidian walls were used in Infdev to mark the positions of the cardinal directions. This created two intersecting planes extending just above the surface of the solid material that surrounds them. This has long since been removed.

Far Lands


The Far Lands were the area that formed the “edge" of the “infinite" map in PC versions prior to Beta 1.8. They were removed as a result of an update to the terrain generation, in Perlin Noise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlin_noise) generator.

Monoliths
These were glitched areas of terrain circa Alpha 1.1 which resembled chunk errors, with the terrain abruptly kicking up to the height limit, with natural grass and ore generation. Below the monoliths was completely hollow except for the water generating at the sea level and a layer of bedrock at the bottom, making the normal terrain seem like inverse monoliths. On very large ones it is very possible to find small crevices where normal terrain has generated within. They tend to generate around flatish terrain. They were caused by an error in the Perlin Noise generator.

By setting Biome Scale Weight to negative values in customized worlds, they can generate in modern versions.

These can theoretically generate infinitely upwards (i.e. up to the Far Sky).

Trees
Some types of trees can no longer be grown with saplings, and no longer generate naturally in new terrain. They were often the result of the fact that new log and leaf types had not yet been added; new trees subsequently "borrowed" logs and leaves from other trees. For example: acacia trees, when they were first added, used jungle logs and oak leaves.

Oak trees in the pocket edition were formerly rarely generated with spruces logs.

The "cold-en" oak, or winter oak, was a tree formed by a very rare glitch in older versions of Pocket Edition prior to 0.9.0. It causes a small tree with a leaf arrangement the same as that of small oak or birch to be generated on the border of a forest and a snowy area (one of which is usually mountainous). It is composed with spruce leaves and spruce logs (seen in both the lite and newer versions prior to 0.9.0) or rarely oak logs (paid only).

Isometric screenshot
In the Indev versions of the game, you can take a screenshot of the map from an isometric perspective using F7. When the game captures an isometric image it will save the current location of all mobs and show any and all alterations to the map the player has made that would be visible from the perspective of the sun (at sunrise). The player will not be visible unless the player was in third person view before taking the Isometric screenshot.

The Isometric screenshot will save to your local user folder as "mc_map_####.png" where #### represents the number of the screenshot ranging from 0000 to 9999.

There are some limitations that existed with the screenshots:
 * Can only capture the player's model when in 3rd person mode.
 * Due to a glitch the screenshot will only render blocks that are in the player's FOV, and everything else will either be black or show blocks under the ground.

Indev map shape
The map shape is the general dimensions the level generator uses to create maps. Added in 0.31, it alters the length, width, and height of the map. There are three kinds of shapes:


 * Square is a map of equal length, width and height.
 * Long is 2x the length and 1/2 the width of a normal map.
 * Deep is 4x height and 1/2 the width and length of a normal map.

Indev map theme
A map theme (comparable to biomes) was the general style that the level generator used to create maps. Added in the 0.31 update in January 7, 2010, it dramatically affects Indev mode's game mechanics. The Paradise and Woods themes were added in the Indev update on February 14, 2010. Themes were later removed during the middle of Infdev.

There were four map themes:


 * Normal features sporadic trees, clouds and equal length of day and night. Ores can be found and lava is generated near bedrock.
 * Hell features less lighting allowing for mob spawning at all times, lava instead of water, dirt instead of grass and grass instead of sand. Mushrooms are abundant on the surface. Farming works at a much slower rate (one plant stage per day cycle). This was later replaced with The Nether.
 * Paradise features larger beaches and plentiful flora, the time is always set to "Noon" and hostile Mobs will only spawn underground. Farming works at a much faster rate (from planting to harvestable in 30–45 minutes).
 * Woods features constant overcast during the day that reduces light and higher tree density. Additionally, mushrooms are spotty throughout the overground areas.

Indev map type
The map type was the general format the level generator used to create maps. Added in 0.31, it dramatically affected Indev mode in the availability of water, sand, and gravel. The further the player traveled towards the end of the map, the slower they moved. There were four map types:


 * Island is the default map type featuring minor hills and water existing at the borders.
 * Floating contains multiple floating islands. Falling from these islands results in death as the surface is covered in bedrock. Floating gravel and sand is common, while water is rare.
 * Flat is similar to superflat today - it features flat grass with flowers, trees and a starting house.
 * Inland features a slightly hilly landscape, which is essentially the Island map type with infinite flatland at its borders as opposed to water. Sand and gravel are common.

Winter mode


Winter mode was a randomly occurring map type for Minecraft Alpha. It was added on the 9th of July, 2010 and was the first "biome" other than the generic theme to appear in Minecraft. It was removed in the Halloween Update. Four different types of snowflakes fell constantly, creating snow tiles on any solid block that was directly exposed to the sky. When a map was generated, all exposed water blocks would be frozen into ice. Also, animals would not spawn as much as in the normal world.

Pre-Beta 1.8 biomes
In Beta 1.8, biomes received a major overhaul, removing and changing many biomes. Prior to these changes, there were 13 biome types which were much smaller and less distinct.

Beast Boy, Black Steve, Steve, Rana
Beast Boy, Black Steve, Steve and Rana were human mobs originally in-game as a test during the Indev phase. They were made by "Dock", Minecraft's past artist, and were removed from the game when Dock left the development team in early 2010. These mobs had no animation and glided around in the same pose. Upon death, Beast Boy, Black Steve and Steve could drop 1–2 string, 1–2 feathers, 1–2 sulphur (this item has since been renamed "gunpowder") and 0–1 flint and steel, while Rana could drop 0–2 apples, 0–5 roses and 0–2 feathers. Beast Boy, Black Steve and Steve each had HP while Rana had.

Human


Humans were hostile mobs who took the form of clones of the default skin. In Classic mode, humans could be spawned by pressing. Strangely, they did not use the punching animation that a normal player would use; they only ran into the player like a zombie would.

Otherwise, humans would just move around the map aimlessly, walking in slightly imperfect circles, flailing their arms and heads, and jumping occasionally. They could not move or destroy blocks, and were not affected by liquids. Changing a player's skin would not change the skin of the human mob.

Unused
These features never had any use in game.

Cog


On January 25, 2010, Notch posted a video of the cogs being placed onto the wall of a cliff.

In Indev on January 26, 2010, the code for cogs (originally named Gear) was added. It could only get obtained by inventory hacking and was invisible in the inventory, at some point an animation was added to the item when in the inventory. When hacked into the game, cogs could only be placed on a side of any block, placing them in a space where two sides are next to each other would cause a cog to appear on each of both sides. Placed cogs were impossible to destroy; any mining directed at a cog phased through to the block behind it, much like water. If the block a cog was on was destroyed, the cog was not removed, but oddly, was invisible. The cog still existed in the map and would show up again if a solid block was replaced. Cogs placed in mid-air using a map editor were also invisible and would show up if a block was placed next to them. Cogs can be only removed using water to flow on them. A cog's sprite consisted of two parts; the center rod and the animated gear.

In Infdev on February 27, 2010, Gear was renamed to Cog, and later on June 27, 2010, it was removed.

Cogs had a data value of 55, which was replaced by redstone in Alpha 1.0.1.

Crying obsidian


Crying obsidian was a texture in Minecraft for an abandoned project to implement a spawn-point changing obelisk. It was abandoned after the introduction of beds. It would have been crafted with an obsidian block and lapis lazuli.

The texture for crying obsidian was removed in Beta 1.5.

On February 9, 2012, Jeb was asked "Can you bring back Crying Obsidian or add some new color/texture blocks?" to which he responded "As soon as I've made preparations for more texture space."

Furniture


In Indev's terrain.png were two textures which might be interpreted as a chair (side and front). The actual purpose of those textures is unknown. The second texture may be the side view of a table, or possibly the front of the chair. On Notch's blog, The Word of Notch, furniture, and more specifically chairs, are mentioned a few times.

Pigman


Minecraft user Miclee came up with the idea for pigmen. He was given the Bacon Cape as a reward, but when Notch was asked for personal capes by other users, the Bacon Cape was taken away from Miclee to prevent further commotion.

Notch mentioned in April 25, 2011 that he might add pigmen as villages' townspeople, although in the Beta 1.9 pre-releases, a different villager mob was introduced.

In 1.6.2, the texture file was removed.

Plate.png
In c0.30_01, there was a folder called "armor", which contained two files in development, showing only a helmet and chestplate. One was finished and called "chain.png" and resembled chain armor, and the the other was unfinished and called "plate.png". Plate.png remained unused and eventually removed. It is possible that this was replaced by the iron armor or that this was originally supposed to be iron armor.

Potions
There were 30 unused potions that were left behind in. All unused potions had no effect and appeared to be re-textures of other potions. These potions were later removed in the 1.9 snapshot 15w44b.

These potions could only be obtained by using the command {{cmd|give ? minecraft:potion 1  at the end of the command.''

{{-}}

Quiver


In Legend of the Chambered (an abandoned RPG that Notch made), there was a quiver item available to be picked up as loot. Notch reused the sprite from that game and put it in Minecraft, albeit flipped horizontally.

Although the sprite for the quiver has been in the game files since Indev, almost nothing is known about it. Jeb originally stated that there were no plans to add them. Later, during 1.9 development, Dinnerbone tweeted a 2×204960 image which can be reformed into a 854×480 Minecraft screenshot, containing the quiver. On June 30, 2015, Dinnerbone posted that he removed them again as arrows in the off-hand feel "more natural".

In 1.9, the quiver texture was removed.

Studded armor


Studded armor were several sprites that were added sometime around in items.png. They were taken from Notch's unfinished game, Legend of the Chambered, along with other armor sprites. The sprites were never implemented into gameplay and were eventually removed.

Play Tutorial Level button
An unclickable Play Tutorial Level button was added during Indev. It could be found on the main screen. It was finally removed during the transition from Alpha to Beta stage, but no such tutorial level existed between Indev and Beta.

Skis


A texture known in the game files as "skis.png", was added in the 1.4.6 update. Its textures were added by Dinnerbone as a red herring. The texture was removed in 1.6.

Fluff.png
In infdev, a texture called "Fluff.png" was added, it resembled snow. It was removed in early alpha.

waterterrain.png
In infdev, a file similar to terrain, referred to as "waterterrain.png" could be found, it is unknown when this file had been added, and unknown when it was removed. It appeared to be some sort of arrow system, and it is possible this was used to test water animation.

Door Details
In the Infdev terrain file there could be found two door textures that looked the same except the hinges and the handle were on the opposite sides, but in today's Minecraft only one of the texture is used, and is flipped, when the handles and hinges are on the other sides.

Door Entity
In the Infdev "item" folder(this is where signs, arrows, and minecarts could be found at the time), you could also see some weird file name "door.png", it was most likely going to be used for the door animation that Notch had been wanting to add.

Brick Block Variations
At some point in Classic there was added 4 similar brick textures with slight differences, hinting it might had been planned to add variations in textures.

Steve Villager Hybrid
After villagers were added, a strange file could be found in the mobs folder(outside the villager folder) called "villager.png". It appeared to be some sort of messy Steve villager hybrid. This file was removed in 1.5 due to the texture pack reform.

Calm4.ogg


Calm4.ogg was a music file (alongside the other tracks) that was beta-tested and created by Notch himself. The song is 3:13.

It consists of an up-beat synth, battle-like tune. At 1:36 in the song, you can hear Notch saying "Mojang Specifications" in a slowed-down voice.

The track was released around, but it is unknown when and why it was omitted from the downloaded game files. As such, players who had the game while the song was still in it will continue to hear it being played, as the game will play any song in the  folder.

With the introduction of the 1.6.1 launcher, playing older versions with the track Calm4.ogg will not allow the track to be heard, since music is downloaded separately from the .jar files.

Lighting updates
World generation lighting issues were temporarily fixed in snapshot 12w39a during the development of 1.4.2, but Dinnerbone reverted these changes due to performance decreases. Bi-directional lighting changes were also reverted, with Dinnerbone promising that he'll "come back to it in 1.5", however this never eventuated.

Many of these changes were implemented in 1.8.

Void fog


Starting in Beta 1.8, black Void fog existed which increased with depth as the player descended past Y=17. As the player traveled deeper, the fog at the edge of the render distance would become closer, until the player reached the deepest depths, where visibility was reduced to just a few blocks, beyond which lay only blackness. There were also dark gray void particles that appeared at and under layer 16, as well as in the void.

Void fog and the void particles were removed in snapshot 14w34c for release version 1.8. The main reason for its removal was to increase performance.

Minecart changes
In snapshot 14w11a during the development of 1.8, the physics of minecarts were changed. Their collision and position handling was improved, and they could go faster and farther, derail at corners if going too fast and refuse to go uphill. However, these changes were reverted in 14w17a after the developers decided that the behavior was too buggy.

Dispensing command blocks
From 1.8 snapshot 14w07a, dispensers had the ability to place a command block that it contained, when activated. This feature was removed as of version 1.8.6 to solve a security issue.

Mobs running from creepers
In 1.8, mobs ran away from creepers that were about to explode. In 1.8.1-pre1, this feature was removed because of performance issues, because every mob that had the ability to run from a creeper was looking for an exploding creeper every tick.

Splashes
When a splash is removed, the line it occupied in splashes.txt is deleted, meaning the line number of all subsequent splashes lowers by one. (Note: the file containing splashes in Pocket Edition is splashes.json.)

Super Secret Settings
The "Super Secret Settings", added in 1.7.2 snapshot 13w38a, were removed in 1.9 snapshot 15w31a for an internal rewrite. It was a button under the options menu that, when pressed, would blare a random game sound with a lower pitch, and activate a shader.

Native Twitch.tv integration
Native Twitch.tv integration, added in 1.7.4 snapshot 13w47a, was removed in 1.9 snapshot 15w31a. Twitch chat was integrated into the game.