Chest

Chests are blocks that can store items. A single chest can store up to 27 stacks of Items or Blocks. A large chest is created by placement of two adjacent chest blocks, however large chests cannot be created directly beside each other (as of 1.8.1, possibly earlier). Large chests have 54 storage slots and open as a single chest with six rows of slots. The top three correspond to the eastern or northern chest block and the bottom three to the southern or western chest block.

A Chest is opened by right-clicking on it. After opening a chest all items in a slot can be quickly transferred to and from a player's inventory by shift-clicking on the item—this will move all items in the slot to a free slot in the inventory and vice versa. For more control, all the items in a slot can be picked up with left-click, or half the items with right-click; then use left-click to place all items being moved, or right-click to place a single item at a time.

Destruction of a chest containing items will drop all of its contents in the immediate area. If one half of a large chest is destroyed, the corresponding items from the destroyed chest block will be dropped and the remaining chest block will continue to function as a small chest. The items in a large chest are organized so that the bottom half of the inventory is concentrated into the South or East side of the large chest, depending on how the chest is oriented.

Chests only occur naturally in dungeons, where they are guarded by a Monster Spawner; in Abandoned Mine Shafts; in Strongholds; and in NPC Villages. These naturally occurring chests are currently the only way to find saddles, cocoa beans, and melon seeds.

Before the Beta 1.8 update, the front of the chest (with the latch) faced away from any adjacent solid blocks, or face west if placed independent of other blocks. The viewpoint of players had no effect on the orientation of placed chests. Now, chests will face towards the player when placed down. Even though chests often change in appearance when surrounding blocks are added or modified, this does not affect the use of the chest.

Chests can be surrounded by other blocks on all sides, but the top must have a one block clearance (exceptions to this exist, see Bugs below). Chest blocks embedded directly into floors function normally.

Crafting
A chest is crafted from eight wooden planks, as shown below:

A chest can be combined with a Minecart to make a Storage Minecart, as shown below:

History
Before Beta 1.8 chests and double chests had a different model and texture: and

Bugs

 * in Minecraft 1.1 if you're going from a higher block jumping to the chest with spare sides you will get in the chest (there must be a block next to it)
 * In SMP Beta 1.8.1 Chests sometimes glitch and crash the game when you place them. This is due to a "Generic Reason" meaning that there is a bug in the coding.
 * Standing in a specific spot next to a chest will cause it go pitch black.
 * When opening a chest in rapid succession from closing it, the chest will remain open.
 * In 1.8, when shift+clicking objects from a chest into an already full inventory, or from the inventory to a full chest, Minecraft would crash. 1.8.1 was released solely to fix this bug, although it still happens.
 * Some chests in a 1.7 save file will be black when you enter the world in 1.8 but will still open. However, this bug can be fixed by updating the chest by placing a block next to it then removing it. E.g. Torches, Cobblestone, etc.
 * Some chests from 1.7 will appear rotated, including inside a wall, when viewing them in 1.8. Recreating half the chest corrects this.
 * It is possible to attach torches above and to all sides of a chest, by attempting to place them on a block above or under the chest in rapid succession.
 * Chests usually require a space of air above it to be used, as blocks directly above will prevent the chest from being opened. Certain blocks placed over the chest still allow the chest to open. These are:
 * Liquids: Water and Lava.
 * Plants: Leaves, Cactus (With a water source block on top), and Farmland.
 * Translucent Blocks: Glass, Slabs, Stairs, Monster Spawner, Snow, Ice, Fence, Cake, Beds, Glowstone, and Chests.
 * Non-Blocks: Torch, Redstone Torch, Redstone Wire, Redstone Repeater, Pressure Plates, Lever, Ladders, Rails, and Sign.
 * If you are killed while having the chest GUI open and you transfer items from the chest to your inventory after you are killed, those items will be lost.
 * Chests can be placed near lava and catch fire. However, they will not burn and after several seconds the fire will extinguish, leaving the chest intact.
 * When underground in near darkness, movement causes chests to flash into full brightness, then back to normal.
 * sometimes, it may cause the game to crash if you destroy a chest block next to a water source block.
 * If you place a chest beside a fence it will be invisible, and if you click it it will crash your game. (confirmed only in SMP and 1.9 prerelease 4)
 * In SMP, in cases of moderate to severe lag, if you exit the chest, the lid might stay open. Reconnecting to the server can fix this.
 * If you throw a arrow into a chest, the things inside will dissapear

Trivia



 * Jeb tweeted that he was thinking of adding a "starting chest" at the spawn in Superflat worlds in the future.
 * A special version of the Chest, Locked Chest, was used as an April Fool's joke on April 1st, 2011 in version Beta 1.4. It was removed April 5, 2011.
 * It is now still possible to place Locked Chests after 1.4, using inventory editors.
 * Previously, if a chest was placed next to a large chest it would attempt to "connect" with the large one, changing its texture to that of half a large chest. However, this is purely visual; they would still act like two separate chests, but as seen in the picture, you could connect multiple chests together and get a glitched "Huge Chest".
 * Additionally, if one attempted to open a chest connected on all four sides, the game froze and the client crashed. This was partially fixed in Beta 1.1_02, however it was still possible if the chest was not placed horizontally adjacent to a large chest or if placed in the location of a fluid. The game would no longer freeze, but instead display a graphically glitched, fully functional chest screen. This bug was completely fixed in Beta 1.5, however any chest previously created in this way still functions.
 * Unlike most other wooden blocks, chests are not flammable.
 * In worlds generated in an Alpha version of Minecraft, chests placed by the player will have a different behavior than the currently known one in Beta. The chest will be placed facing towards the player (with the latch in front), instead of using the current algorithm being that the chest will face away from any adjacent solid blocks, or face west if placed independently of other blocks.
 * This particular behavior takes place on any Alpha world, even if played on a Beta version of the game.
 * In Beta 1.8, chest opening and closing sound was the same sound file as a door, although this was replaced in 1.0.0.
 * Since the Beta 1.8 update, chests are slightly smaller than they were before.
 * Sometimes the chest top will not close after the player is done using it.
 * As of 1.0.0, a sound update was released and chests now have a new sound.
 * As of Beta 1.8, the chest's texture is not in the terrain.png file. Instead, it is in the folder "item" under "chest.png" and "chestlarge.png," with the former being a chest on its own and the latter being the double chest. However the chest particles are still based off terrain.png and for the Locked Chest texture.
 * Chests cannot be pushed or pulled by Pistons.
 * Chests do not show any cracks as other blocks do when hit.