Health

The health gauge and monitor in Minecraft displays how much damage the player is able to take before dying. It is usually based on a single row of 10 heart icons. Each full heart contains two halves, one health point each (the player has normally 20 maximum health points).

Hearts


Hearts make up the health meter for the player in the Survival, Hardcore (different texture), and Adventure modes, also for mobs. Each heart represents two hit points. Hit points are lost when players (or mobs) take damage, which can be a percentage of those hearts. However, damage less than isn't visible on the health bar.

If the health meter shows or less, it begins to shake violently, warning that the player is low on health.

Health can be recovered through several means, both "naturally" and through status effects.


 * The Instant Health effect restores health immediately, the amount depending on the source and effect level.
 * On Peaceful difficulty, the health meter continuously refills over time.
 * On other difficulties, health regenerates slowly when the player's hunger is at or above.
 * The Regeneration effect makes health regenerate fairly quickly, and the hearts of the health meter bounce in a wave. Aside from potions of Regeneration, this is also provided by beacons and golden apples. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level II) for 5 seconds, restoring a total of . The "enchanted" golden apple provides it for longer (20 seconds) and in total restoring about.
 * The Health Boost effect adds 4 per effect level to the player's total health that can be healed or regenerated by normal means, which is removed when the effect expires. After the effect expires, the player's health may remain above the normal maximum, but the extra health is not recovered once lost to damage. This effect can be gained only through commands or mods. At the levels of 252-256 (with amplifiers 251 to 255), the player has 512 hearts (1024 health points, the "red health" limit for entities).
 * The Absorption effect likewise adds for each effect level. Different from the Health Boost effect, this special health cannot be healed or regenerated by normal means. Naturally, it is removed when the effect expires. The "basic" golden apple provides it (level I) for 2 minutes, providing a total of . The "enchanted" golden apple provides it at higher level (level IV), providing a total of.

Damage is split between the health and armor bars. Each full armor point takes 8% of damage, to a maximum of 80%, rounded up. Armor points also protect less damage (and deal more hearts) with stronger attacks.

On Hardcore mode, hearts have a different texture.

The and  effects turn hearts  a sickly green color and  black, respectively. On Hardcore, they turn when poisoned and  when withered. Freezing in powder snow will cause hearts to turn blue.

In Creative mode, the player is immune to all forms of damage. In Bedrock Edition, this includes the void and the command.

The player's health bar is invisible while holding or wearing an item that gives negative health points that exceed the player's current health points. For example, the player's default health is 20, and if holding an item with the attribute &minus;21 health, the player can take two hits before dying; it doesn't matter how much damage these hits inflict. The first one deals enough damage to reduce health to, and the second one kills the player. If the player uses a modified item to reduce health, sometimes the death screen appears. After clicking respawn, the player would shake in the death position and this can be fixed by ceasing to use the modified item.

Wolves and iron golems are the only mobs that show their remaining health visually. Horses, donkeys, mules, llamas and the wither are the only mobs that regenerate health naturally over time.

Death


Death occurs when all of a player or mob's health is depleted.

Upon the death of a player, a death message describing the cause of death is shown to everyone in that world. $$, the death of a player's pet also creates a death message, but one that is shown only to its owner.

The command also instantly brings about death, and a parrot can be instantly killed by feeding it a cookie.

Mobs and players fall to their left side to the ground when killed (apart from squid which don't have a death animation, spiders which flip upside-down and the ender dragon which ascends and explodes), dropping experience and any drops at the location they were when they took the fatal damage. Once a fallen body disappears, it turns to dust and drops experience at the disappearance location.

Player effects


For players, a "You died!" screen (or "Game over!" in Hardcore mode) appears, displaying the player's score, and a death message (see Death messages). The view of the world is tinted red, and the camera-view slowly tilts as if falling over, shudders, and zooms in somewhat. $$, it zooms in indefinitely. Two options appear on that screen:


 * Respawn: either in the last the player slept in, at their default spawn point (their first spawn point in the game), their, or at the spawn point set by commands. In Hardcore mode, the player can respawn only in Spectator mode, and cannot continue because cheats are disabled.
 * Return to the title screen.

The death screen is not shown upon death if:


 * The player holds a in the main hand or off-hand and died without falling into the void, in which case the player resurrects upon death. Resurrection does not happen if the player fell into the void.
 * Instant respawn enabled, in which case the player instantly respawns upon death without the death screen appearing, but still showing death message.

Any items and/or blocks that were in the player's inventory (except items enchanted with Curse of Vanishing) are dropped from their head, and scattered around the spot where the player died (unless is typed in if commands are enabled). Like any dropped item, these drops decay after five minutes while that chunk is loaded.

The player also loses any experience accumulated, reverting the level back to 0 (unless is typed in if commands are enabled) and drops experience orbs with a precise total value of player last level × 7 experience points (with a maximum of 100). After reaching between levels 7 and 8, the player always drops only 100 experience points regardless of level.

Despite the fact that dead players disappear like all other mobs, it is still possible for the player to see their own hand while in the first-person mode.

Trivia

 * Due to a bug, mobs in Java Edition seems to have extra health points.