History of textures/Unused textures

This page documents textures which are or once were present within Minecraft, but are not actually used.

In specific, only textures which themselves were fully unused are documented here. Disused textures which were used for a given feature in previous versions are not listed here, nor are textures which became used in a version after the texture itself was added, even if the texture in question was changed first (examples being cobwebs, crying obsidian, the original end stone texture, the original two sandstone texture variants, and the pigman, which was later retconned to the piglin). Unused duplicates of textures are generally also not listed here unless tied to another unused texture or being changed later down the line.

A much more quantitative, but less analytical, list of unused textures of varying levels of notability can be found here.

Classic white texture
In the versions of terrain.png used between 0.0.14a and 0.0.14a_08 there is a white texture which was not used in any in-game block. It may have been an early experimental snow texture, as Notch had stated interest in adding snow and ice before this point, or it could relate to clouds, as they were added in the same version. Some more possibilities are: sugar texturing, cake texturing, cobweb texturing, placeable milk, wool, calcite/andesite/diorite concepts or retextures, and more. This texture was removed from terrain.png in 0.0.15a.

Brick texture variations
In the versions of terrain.png used between 0.26 SURVIVAL TEST and 0.30 inclusive, there existed four textures very similar to the existing bricks texture, although with subtle differences. These textures were removed from terrain.png at the start of Indev.

Chair textures
From Indev 20100206 to Infdev 20100627 two textures were present in terrain.png which were based off of the oak planks texture. The first texture is commonly recognised to be the side view of a chair, and the other texture is often interpreted as being either the front view of a chair or a side a table, although the latter was never mentioned by Notch and as such this interpretation remains speculative.

Indev 20100206 also added a duplicate oak planks texture. This may have been intended to be used for such blocks as well (as the back or seat portion), or it may have simply been the texture copied for the other two textures to be cut from,mars said textures are clearly oak planks derivatives. This was removed earlier than the other two textures in Infdev 20100607.

In Infdev 20100618, the chair texture specifically changed to be slightly darker, which was likely unintentional: the door and ladder textures, which were relatively close to it on terrain.png, were also darkened in said version, and the second texture remained completely untouched.

Mojang have since rejected the idea of adding "furniture" blocks to the game, as their existence would "inhibit natural creativity".

Possible coral texture
In Infdev 20100629, a texture was added to terrain.png of completely unknown use. This texture was composed of several transparent, black, white and various shades of gray pixels. This texture was removed in Alpha v1.0.4 with its position being taken by the snowy grass block side texture.

The addition of this texture to terrain.png roughly coincides with Notch mentioning an attempt to add coral blocks to the game, according to a post on The Word of Notch documenting a failed attempt to draw a realistic-looking coral block texture. The texture's hyperbolic appearance does in fact resemble the early iterations of coral blocks showcased at Minecon in 2017.

Grass block top texture duplicate
In Beta 1.6 Test Build 3, a duplicate of the grass block top texture was added to terrain.png. As this version also added grass and ferns, which appear adjacent to this texture, it is highly likely that this texture was copied simply to pick the colors from during texturing, and was accidentally left in.

Interestingly, in Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5, despite being completely unused in-game, this texture was actually changed alongside other block textures that changed in this version. The actually used grass block texture also changed in this version, however despite both textures being identical beforehand, the Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5 textures made the two textures visually distinct from each other.

The terrain.png used in Pocket Edition v0.2.0 alpha, being based off of the terrain.png from Java Edition 1.0.0, also includes this texture. It was also present in Xbox 360 Edition since its inception, due to initially being based on Java Edition Beta 1.6.6.

The texture was eventually removed from Java Edition in 13w02a and Pocket Edition in v0.8.0 alpha build 2 due to the deprecation of terrain.png in those versions. It was removed from Xbox 360 Edition in TU12 due to being replaced by the vertical dispenser texture, although it still technically persists in the base game as the original terrain.png was never removed, despite never being used in TU3 onwards.

"Footprints" texture
In Beta 1.8 Pre-release, a texture possibly composed of three footprints was added to terrain.png. Its intended use is unknown. The texture was eventually removed in 13w03a due to terrain.png 's deprecation in 13w02a and the subsequent removal of it and results.png.

This texture also carried on to Pocket Edition in v0.2.0 alpha due to the terrain.png used then being based off of the one from Java Edition 1.0.0, before its removal in v0.8.0 alpha build 2.

The texture was also present in Xbox 360 Edition since TU0 due to said version including a copy of Java Edition 1.2's terrain.png. It was re-replaced by a lilac placeholder texture in TU12.

"Village border"
These textures, also added to terrain.png in Beta 1.8 Pre-release, remained unused and were removed in 13w03a per terrain.png 's deprecation in 13w02a and the subsequent removal of it and results.png. These textures were said to have been used to mark the edges of villages as seen in the Beta 1.8 PAX demo, however footage of these textures in action does not seem to exist.

The "edge" texture was carried to Pocket Edition in v0.2.0 alpha, however the "corner" texture was not, as its place was taken up by the info_update texture. The "edge" was removed in v0.8.0 alpha build 2 alongside many other such textures.

Both textures were present in Xbox 360 Edition since TU0 due to said version including a copy of Java Edition 1.2's terrain.png. In TU12, the "edge" was replaced by the bottom texture of the block of quartz (later known as the smooth quartz texture), and the "corner" by the top texture of the hopper.

Beta/Release white texture
The last of four unused textures added in Beta 1.8 Pre-release, this white texture was located alongside the three others. Its use is also unknown (potentially, it could be meant to be a "snowy" overlay for saplings), and was removed in 13w02a per terrain.png 's deprecation in 13w02a and the subsequent removal of it and results.png.

This texture never appeared in Pocket Edition Alpha, as its position was taken by the texture for info_update2.

The texture was present in Xbox 360 Edition since TU0 due to said version including a copy of Java Edition 1.2's terrain.png. It was re-replaced by a lilac placeholder texture in TU12.

Paeonia
The paeonia was a flower type originally planned for implementation in 1.7.2. Originally revealed by Jeb in a screenshot, the flower was ultimately never implemented, ultimately superseded by the peony.

Vine variants
Three unused vine variant textures were present in early revisions of the texture update.

Barrel variants
In beta 1.9.0.2, these two barrel top textures were added to Bedrock Edition's block textures, but were unused. The "empty" texture visually resembles the later-introduced open texture. What these textures were specifically intended for remains unknown, and it is not known if they have been removed yet.

Wax block
A texture for a wax block was added to the game files in 19w34a. This texture was removed in 19w42a, as it was never actually intended to be used.

As this was a lone texture, it is implied that it would simply be rendered as a full cube:

Calibrated sculk sensor
In 20w49a, these two textures were added to the assets/minecraft/textures/blocks directory. The top texture is a translucent version of the block of amethyst texture, where the side texture is composed of the sculk sensor's side texture overlayed on the amethyst texture. Interestingly, the amethyst textures are based on those from 20w45a, despite these textures being added in 20w49a after the amethyst block textures were redone twice, implying these textures come from a probably long-since-scrapped functionality of the sculk sensor coupled with amethyst.

The textures were removed in Java Edition 21w13a. The calibrated sculk sensor was later reimplemented on snapshot 23w12a with a new texture.

Root vines
In Java Edition 21w05a, this texture called root_vines_head.png was added to the assets/minecraft/textures/block/ directory. This was an early design for cave vines. There is no known "body" texture despite this being implied by this texture being named "head" alongside the naming of existing cave vines.

The texture was removed in Java Edition 21w16a.

Given its translucent appearance, it likely would have been rendered as a cross, similar to cave vines and weeping vines.

debug.png and debug2.png
In 15w31a, these two textures were added to the game, where they remain to the current day. Given their name, they are used for debugging purposes by Mojang, likely for the creation and testing of block textures and models. They bear a passing resemblance to the two unimplemented sandstone textures added in 1.2.

debug.png could be made to appear in-game in certain Java Edition 1.13 snapshots due to being defined as the particle texture for bubble columns, meaning actions that would result in the creation of particles (such as falling from a certain height (what height?) onto the edge of a block next to a bubble column) would show particles with this texture. They could also be seen when the bubble column was pushed by a piston.

Despite being unused, both of these blocks were given new textures for the 2018 April Fools' update: .

Studded armor
Studded armor refers to four armor item textures which were found in the initial versions of items.png, alongside the leather armor, chain armor and plate (iron) armor sets. It is the leather armour with chain armour wrapped around it, similarly to the armour worn by medieval(?) knights. First appearing in the second December 31, 2009 build, the sprites technically did see use in-game, but this is of little significance as all sprites on items.png were used at the time, with basically no functionality. These textures were taken directly from one of Notch's games Legend of the Chambered 2.

The textures were ultimately removed some time between the 4th and 6th of February, 2010 in preparation for the actual implementation of armor and its mechanics.

It was re-implemented in a way as the Armour Trims, which allows you to overlay armour with different coloured materials for a chain-like pattern.

Quiver
The quiver was another item texture which existed in items.png from the very beginning, but which persisted for much longer. Having its origins in Legend of the Chambered, one of Notch's prior games, the texture was also included among the first item sprites in the game. While it too technically existed as an item, it was also ultimately nonfunctional and only existed for testing purposes.

Its texture was changed on the 22nd of January, 2010 by flipping it horizontally from its original orientation.

As a result of this scrapping, with there no longer being any planned future uses for the texture, it was ultimately removed in 1.9's first snapshot: 15w31a.

The quiver texture was also present in Pocket Edition's items.png file and, reflecting the behavior of early Indev, was even unintentionally assigned to an invalid ID item. Its removal time is unknown, and it was later re-added. It was also present in the Legacy Console Edition from the start, being replaced by the end crystal item texture in TU43 and equivalent versions.

Handheld camera
Between Pocket Edition v0.1.0 alpha and Pocket Edition v0.2.0 alpha, there was an unused item texture resembling a handheld camera, next to the texture for the actual camera entity.

Ruby
Rubies were intended to be the original currency used for trading. They could be seen in a screenshot released by Jeb on 21 May 2012, in which the trading system was first being tested. While it was later decided that emeralds would take their place as a currency, a ruby texture still made its way into items.png in Java Edition 12w21a alongside that of the emerald. The unused ruby texture which was present in the game differed from the version shown in the screenshot, however; both versions of the texture are shown below for the sake of comparison.

Emeralds were decided upon over rubies as Dinnerbone stated he, and likely many other players, had difficulty distinguishing between the texture of ruby ore and redstone ore, likely due to the blend the gems had with the grey stone.

Despite being completely unused throughout its existence in the game files, it, like the quiver, inexplicably survived the splitting of items.png and remained in the game as an unused texture file for much longer than expected. It even beat the quiver in longevity, remaining unused in the game for close to a decade prior to its removal in Java Edition 21w13a.

The texture was added to Pocket Edition in v0.8.0 alpha build 2, likely on accident, as all item textures from Java Edition at the time were likely indiscriminately copied over and stitched into items-opaque.tga without concern for what was actually used. It was eventually removed in the first v0.14.0 build (but later re-added). The texture was also added to Xbox 360 Edition in TU9, and remained in the console editions until TU54 and equivalent versions, in which it was replaced by one of the textures used for bed items.

Rubies were also a currency in the now-discontinued game Minecraft Earth, but with completely different textures from those present in the main game.

Banner item textures
During the Java Edition 1.8 snapshots, starting with Java Edition 14w30a, there were two unused item textures, "banner_base" and "banner_overlay", probably intended to be used together as a recolorable inventory icon for banners. The texture for "banner_base" was removed in 16w41a and the texture "banner_overlay" was removed in 17w47a.

Crystallized honey
A texture for a crystallized honey item was added to the game files in 19w34a. This texture was removed in 19w42a, as it was never actually intended to be used. It resembles another item, but I can't put my finger on it.

Mask Spawn Egg
There is an unused spawn egg texture in the Bedrock Edition files. As the name suggests, this is not intended to represent a mob, but instead to quite literally "mask" other mobs. Basically, it is a placeholder for fanmade mobs in add-ons. Interestingly, many mobs or entities used in addons from the marketplace use the NPC/Agent spawn egg (which ever one is purple with red yellow blue and green spots).

Unused potions
Bedrock Edition has unused potion textures for several effects, along with their splash variants. These effects are: Absorption, Blindness, Haste, Health Boost, Hunger, Mining Fatigue, Nausea, Resistance, Saturation, and Levitation, as well as the Luck potion textures also present in Java Edition. These unused textures were added along with the other potion textures in Pocket Edition v0.12.1 alpha, except for the potion of levitation, which was added in Pocket Edition 1.0.0. The textures were changed along with the other potion textures during the texture update in Bedrock Edition 1.10.0. Strangely, the potion of levitation texture is a duplicate of the splash potion of levitation texture.

Unused compounds
In the chemistry resource pack folder of the education edition, there are numerous compound textures which are not used in the game, including a variant of the bleach texture.

2char.png
2char.png is a texture that was added in Java Edition Classic 0.0.20a. The texture is mostly identical to that of Steve except for being entirely white. It was removed in Java Edition Alpha v1.2.2, which likely had something to do with the addition of texture pack support.

char_2.png
char_2.png is a texture that could be found in the jar file for the first Indev build released on February 12, 2010. The texture is mostly identical to that of Steve, with the difference being the presence of two yellow pixels on the head, as well as hair being present in the hat layer as well as the base. It was removed two days later.

Door entity
On 3 June 2010, Notch discussed on his blog plans to add different types of furniture to the game, which included doors. These postings include discussions of implementing said furniture in the form of entities as opposed to blocks, as was previously done for paintings in Indev, with Notch also stating his successful reimplementation of signs the previous day as a block entity. If implemented as a block entity, this would allow doors to have a smooth opening and closing animation, similarly to what was added for chests a bit over a year later by converting them from normal blocks.

Doors were ultimately added on the 7th of June, 2010, as a relatively normal block, which would instantly open or close when interacted with, having no continuous animation in the process as had been mentioned. However, the /item directory in minecraft.jar, which stored the textures for other non-mob entities at that time such as minecarts and arrows, gained a texture called door.png in this same version, which is without a doubt linked to said opening/closing animation. An early iteration of the oak door can be seen in it, with empty space filled out in solid purple in a fashion resembling the placeholder texture from terrain.png and kz.png as well as the checkerboard missing texture.

An interesting thing to note about this door texture is the absence of any windows, a significant difference from the door actually implemented in the June 7th Infdev build, the top half of which does have a transparent window. The item form, however, still did not have a window in it until Alpha v1.0.1, meaning said item form was likely based off of this early iteration of the door before the animation was scrapped and the now comparatively inanimate door being given a window.

This door entity texture was one of many unused textures removed in 13w24a with the reconfiguring of game assets and the introduction of resource packs as the successor to texture packs.

Pigman
An unused pigman texture was added in Java Edition Alpha v1.2.0 and later removed in Java Edition 13w24a.

villager.png
Villagers were added to Java Edition in the first Beta 1.9 prerelease, with their textures located together in a dedicated subfolder of the mob textures folder: /mob/villager. However, another texture was added in this version, called villager.png, which is directly in the mob folder itself rather than the villager subfolder. (It is not to be confused with the "generic" file also called villager.png which is located in the villager subfolder, which was later used for nitwits.) This texture is completely unused, and closely resembles Steve, but with significant modifications to fit a different entity model.

If this texture is applied to a villager through use of a custom texture pack, the overall appearance is glitchy, implying that the model it was intended to be used for had changed since, and was eventually developed into the villager model that was actually released.

Along with many other unused textures, villager.png was removed in 13w24a when texture packs were succeeded by resource packs.

Duplicate ender dragon textures
In Java Edition Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4, two unused duplicate ender dragon textures, titled "body" and "dragon", were added, probably left over from an earlier phase in development, as they resemble other pre-release ender dragon textures that Notch shared on twitter. They were removed in Java Edition 1.6.1.

Skis
In 12w50a, a snapshot for Java Edition 1.4.6, a texture named skis.png was added to the game. 1.4.6 was released close to Christmas of 2012, meaning this texture was likely decided upon due to the time of this update's release. The texture was never actually intended to be used, and instead added by Dinnerbone as a red herring.

Like many other unused textures, it was removed in 13w24a with the switch to resource packs. The texture was once again reimplemented as a joke feature in 23w13a_or_b.

Light blue particles
In Beta 1.4, two blue particles were added to particles.png of completely unknown use. They visually resemble water droplets, possibly implying early plans to add the water dripping event later added in 1.0.0, or a change to existing water splash effects. These particle textures were eventually removed in 19w06a due to the splitting of particles.png into its constituent textures, with unused particle textures being removed outright.

The textures were also added to Pocket Edition in v0.1.0 alpha due to its particles.png being the same as the version from Beta 1.4. It existed in Bedrock Edition up to release 1.16.

It may be worth noting that these two particles also closely resemble the existing used "flame" and "lava" particles in shape, possibly hinting at a planned connection:

Angry villager head
In 12w34a, a texture resembling an angry-looking villager head was added to particles.png. However, it remained unused, likely superseded by the cloud texture next to it. This texture was also removed in 19w06a due to being unused.

This unused texture was added to Pocket Edition in v0.12.1 alpha build 1 due to it changing to use a particles.png based on the one from 12w34a. It still exists in Bedrock Edition's particles.png as of 1.16.

Elephant toothpaste
An unused particle called elephant_toothpaste.png was added to the chemistry pack of Education Edition in an unknown version. It appears to be a particle atlas similar to that of campfire smoke, recolored to appear lighter.

Elephant's toothpaste is a popular demonstration in introductory chemistry, and as such was likely intended to be implemented among the other educational chemistry content, but was later scrapped.

Soul lava
In an unknown build of Bedrock Edition 1.16.0, a "soul lava" particle was added to particles.png. It can be seen that this particle is to the "lava" particle texture what the soul flame particle is to the ordinary "flame" particle. While likely added for consistency, it appears completely unused and whether it was actually planned for use at all is unknown.

Unlike normal campfires, soul campfires do not emit any type of ember. This is due to there being no defined particle for a soul ember, something which this texture would fill in. However, despite this, the texture is yet to make any appearance in Java Edition and remains unused in Bedrock Edition.

waterterrain.png
In the 15 June 2010 Infdev release, a texture file named waterterrain.png was added to the jar file. Resembling terrain.png in name, dimensions and the use of similar lilac textures in empty spots, it featured a multitude of different directional symbols.

Since this was added in the same version that implemented new flowing mechanics for water and lava, it is extremely likely that this was used to test its flow directions: the presence of two sets of icons implies one set was used for water and the other for lava (further reinforced by one being blue and the other pink), the circle would represent still fluids, the eight orthogonal/diagonal arrows would correspond to orthogonal flowing, and the downwards arrow the sides of liquid ("waterfalls").

It is also possible that it was intended as a texture atlas for fluid textures, distinct from block textures, and that the textures present on it at the time were placeholders.

Ultimately, flowing liquids simply used a 32x32 texture each (which remained within terrain.png ), rotated accordingly depending on the flow direction (which could be orthogonal, diagonal or knightwise, the last of which this sheet did not account for), and this file fell into disuse. It was eventually removed in Alpha v1.2.2 with the addition of texture pack support.

watercolor.png
Java Edition Beta 1.6 Test Build 3 introduced this file to the /misc/ directory in the jar file. This image was a color map intended to be used depending on the biome, similarly to the existing grasscolor.png and foliagecolor.png, where a color would be selected from a point on the image depending on temperature and humidity.

Intended for use on water, with the game even containing unused code around the time of its introduction which would apply it to water, it ultimately remained unused, with water maintaining a constant color regardless of biome at the time. This may or may not be due to water's texture being blue at the time, rather than the gray or white required for an effective tint, and as such multiplying it with a color would yield undesirable results (tinting already-blue water with another shade of blue would just make it much darker and unsightly); since water's texture was generated at runtime rather than defined as an image, actually making water's raw texture be gray would be a non-trivial task.

Biome-tinted water was first introduced in Java Edition Beta 1.9 Prerelease, but only to a very limited extent, as swamps were the only biome to have a tint defined, and as water's texture was still blue by default, swamp water had to be tinted green to make it appear browner.

When procedurally-generated animated textures were replaced by texture files in 13w02a, the water texture was still inherently blue, even though making it gray or white would have been an easy task at this point and would allow watercolor.png to be used for biome-dependent water colors.

watercolor.png was ultimately removed in 13w24a alongside many others due to it remaining unused.

When Java Edition 18w15a expanded on biome-dependent water tints (and made the water textures white to accommodate this), the subject biomes still remained limited, as swamps and different temperature oceans were the only biomes to have colors which differed from the default color specified. These colors were values explicitly specified per biome, rather than taken from a colormap like watercolor.png. As a result of this approach, there are currently several oversights in the current game where special water colors have not been defined for certain biomes even when they should be.

Reimplementing and actually using this file for the majority of biomes, like is done for grass and foliage, with swamps and possibly a few other biomes being the only remaining special-cased biomes, would likely resolve this issue in its entirety, as there would no longer be a need to specify water colors in biome json files; a blank entry would cause the game to seek out a value from the color map, which is what happens currently for grass and foliage.