Eye of Ender

An eye of ender is a craftable item used to locate strongholds and activate the end portals within them.

Locating strongholds


To locate strongholds (and the end portals they house):
 * Pressing while holding an eye of ender causes it to fly approximately 12 blocks in the direction of the nearest stronghold, traveling through any blocks necessary, and leave a trail of purple particles, the same particle effect used for endermen and ender chests.
 * The eye leads to the chunk where a spiral staircase, the first room generated in the stronghold, is located.
 * The center of this entrance staircase is always exactly at the chunk coordinates 4, ~, 4, although the eyes of ender leads to chunk coordinates 8, ~, 8 (the center of the chunk).
 * While over 12 blocks away from the center of the staircase chunk, the eye will travel upward to offer an easily-visible indication of the horizontal direction the player must travel.
 * When closer than 12 blocks from the center of the staircase chunk, the eye will travel downward, to indicate the player is above a stronghold and must mine downward.
 * 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 20% chance of shattering. The median expectation for an eye to shatter is four throws.
 * The eye of ender's flying function works only in the Overworld. It does nothing in the Nether, the End, custom dimensions, or in worlds with no strongholds.

Activating end portals
Once an end portal is found, the eyes of ender are required to activate it. End portals require a total of 12 eyes of ender in order to activate, though each individual frame-block has a 10% chance of containing an eye of ender when generated. Eyes can be placed in empty End portal frames by pressing on them until the entire ring of 12 is filled, thereby activating the portal. Due to the fact that there is a 10% chance of each individual end portal frame having an eye in it, there is a one out of one trillion chance of every frame having an eye in it thereby activating the portal even if the player doesn't have any eyes of ender.

ID




Entity data
The purple particles left by ender eyes have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * When thrown in third-person view, the eyes of ender fly out from the player's feet instead of their hand.
 * Before Java Edition 1.9, eyes of ender can be purchased from cleric villagers, which means players can find a stronghold and go to the End without accessing the Nether at all.
 * $$ if the player travels beyond a certain radius (roughly 740,000 blocks), eyes of ender always point to a stronghold near spawn, even though strongholds continue to generate past this limit. If one travels to this limit, they can see eyes of ender suddenly switching direction. A similar phenomenon occurs with the command.