Mods

What is a mod?
Mods (short for modifications) are changes, additions, or deletions to Minecraft that alter the original gameplay. Mods that add new content to the original game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions, and mods that fix bugs are called unofficial patches. Mods have become increasingly popular, and increasingly extravagant. Mods are becoming very in-depth and add whole new experiences and goals to the game. Mods can now entirely change the minecraft you thought you knew.

Most mods in Minecraft add content to the game to alter gameplay, change the creative feel, or give a player more options in how they interact with the Minecraft world. Some may be bigger expansions, such as the Aether Mod, that add a significant amount of new content to the game. Other mods take away content to create a simpler or more specific gameplay experience. Some mods, such as the Portal Mod, attempt to bring over another game's content, experience, and feel. And still other mods do more technical things such as adding or expanding more settings/options or optimizing the speed, graphics, or gameplay of the game. Server mods or plugins mainly give server admins more options and ease of use, and most mods for single-player have a server version that allows or optimizes the mod in multiplayer.

Ideally, the creator of a Minecraft Mod updates the mod whenever the game updates - bringing more content, bug fixes, or optimizations. Otherwise, the mod may not work with a new version. Many in the Minecraft community appreciate the additional experience and ease of use that come with mods, while others play "vanilla", the original game, with only the original content, and might view mod usage as cheating. While Minecraft mods are generally safe to install, one should exercise caution with mods to prevent crashes, deletion of game or save data, system instability, or potential malware infections from a bad link or the mod itself. A good way to protect your game from such problems is to back up various files such as the .minecraft, the saves folder ect; if you choose to use mods. There are many mods or plugins available to complement the original Minecraft game or give server admins more options and control over their servers.

Official Modding API
The Modding API is an upcoming feature that allows modders to more easily add content to the game. Mojang have now revealed that the Bukkit team are making the Official Modding API. . Curse recently interviewed Jeb about the Mod API. Jeb has released that he wants Mods to be as easy as possible to find, install and download (i.e. without modifying the minecraft.jar). The API will NOT be exactly the same as Bukkit. Most mods will be multiplayer server compatible. Watch Part 1 of the interview here and Part 2 (coming soon).

How to install Mods
The above link provides a comprehensive guide on how to install mods. Nearly all mod packs have auto-installers that make adding mods to Minecraft extremely easy for the beginner Modder.

Outdated Mods
All outdated mods from 1.0.0 and later can be found from the above link.

Only move mods on this page to the Outdated Mods Page when a full month has passed since the version release. Some modders take longer to update their mods than others. Once substantial time (at least a month, if not more) has passed since the version release, only mods that are two versions earlier should be kept. E.g. If one month has passed since 1.2.3 has been released, only mods that are for 1.0.0 and 1.1 should be kept on the Outdated Mods page. Any mods in Beta 1.8.1 or earlier are unlikely to get updated, and are considered dead mods. These mods can be deleted from the list.

Modding Programs and Editors
The above link gives showcases tools for installing and making mods.

Client Mods
TIP: Use CTRL+F (Windows) or CMD+F (Mac) to find a mod you are looking for.

Client Mods are modifications to your Minecraft program. They are not custom clients, and require modification of minecraft.jar. Like high resolution textures, they only work with the launchers, and won't work if you play through a browser.

The most common form of client mods are aesthetic and/or functional (such as the iMod). However, some client mods add content to the game, and others fix issues with the game. While some do work on SMP, mods that add content, and thus could be used for griefing, do not work, as the server will ignore custom content.

Note to people editing this page to post their own mods:

First, please put your mod in the correct section. If it adds new mobs, items, blocks or dimensions, put it in New Content. If it changes features of an existing item or adds settings, like adding a new difficulty level or making mobs drop more experience, put it in Aesthetic and Functional Mods. If it fixes a bug in "vanilla" Minecraft, put it in Fixes. Second, please keep the mods in alphabetical order. It's much harder to find older, established mods when they are buried beneath the mods that have been thrown on top of them.

Thank you for following these simple rules.

APIs and Loaders

 * For a list of Outdated APIs/Loaders, see here.

Fixes

 * For a list of Outdated Fixes, see here.

If it a mod fixes a bug in "vanilla" Minecraft, put it here.

Aesthetic and Functional

 * For a list of Outdated Aesthetic and Functional mods, see here.

If a mod changes features of an existing item or adds settings, like adding a new difficulty level or making mobs drop more experience, place it here.

New Content
For a list of Outdated New Content mods, see here.

If a mod adds new blocks, items, mobs or dimensions, place it here.

Language Packs
Language packs are now obsolete. See the above link for more information.

Server Mods
Server Mods are modifications to the official Minecraft server software. They generally fall into two broad categories: management and gameplay.

Management mods are commonly designed to make administration of servers easier by implementing tiered privileges for commands (such as kicking, banning etc.). They are frequently implemented as "wrappers" which do not actually modify the main server .jar file, instead monitoring its output and sending commands to it.

Gameplay mods are modifications to actual game mechanics, such as restricting the placement of blocks commonly abused by Griefers (e.g. lava, TNT), fixing bugs in the server (e.g. making furnaces function before the update of 10th of September 2010) or adding new gameplay features.

Server Modifications
This is a list of wrappers and modifications. For server mods for out of date versions, see here.

Videos

 * How to install Mods
 * How to install ALL mods with links to all resources
 * How rsmalec installs/upgrades his mods