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 and Food are stackable but tools (with the exception of clocks and compasses) are not. Snowballs and eggs are special and can only stack up to 16.

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.

For Beta 1.8 Creative Mode, the inventory becomes an Item Selection page (see below) with all items and without the character, similar to 0.30 Creative Mode.

Item Selection
The Item Selection screen is basically an inventory for the (Beta 1.8+) Creative Mode. You are able to pick an unlimited amount of the available Blocks or Items. Also non-legitimately obtainable items are available (such as Ice, Sponge etc. Some of them will though get legitimately obtainable again in the 1.9 Update due to Enchanting).

Known Bugs

 * If you open your inventory while sitting in a vehicle and wearing armor pants, you will see that your legs will be bent in a sitting position but your armor pants will not. They will remain upright and come off your body right through your legs. The reverse happens if you put on armor while in a vehicle and leave it.

Trivia

 * If you are falling asleep in a bed, and you access your inventory screen, your character will be laying. However the current skin you have on will stay the same. Similar effect is seen with riding a boat, pig, or minecart, but your character will be sitting.
 * In the Item Selection screen, the Sponge block is available again, but it does not absorb water.
 * In the Item Selection screen, some items and blocks are missing, such as huge mushroom blocks and mob spawners.
 * Your character will always look at your mouse cursor while in inventory.
 * In creative mode, you cannot add armor to your character using the inventory.
 * In the Minecraft Beta 1.9 Pre-release, the inventory has many unused icons. It is located by opening the minecraft.jar, finding the folder "gui", and opening inventory.png
 * As of Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4, the gray frame surrounding the hotkey items becomes white and the semi-transparent black background becomes completely transparent when the player holds a Golden Apple or an Enchanted Item. This also happens when you look at a Primed TNT, a Painting or an Enderman. (Only in Fast graphics mode, in Fancy these effects (or bugs) do not exist)