Commands

Commands are advanced functions activated by typing certain strings of text.

In a regular Minecraft client or the stand alone client, commands are entered via Minecraft's chat window, which is displayed by pressing the key (default) or  key. Using the key will also enter the forward slash that commands require as a prefix, so it is a useful shortcut. Pressing while entering commands cycles through possible commands or arguments.

Commands may also be entered in a multiplayer server's console, but are not preceded by a when entered this way. Commands in command blocks can be preceded by a slash, but it is not required.

The majority of commands are only available in the following situations:


 * In a Minecraft multiplayer server game, entered by an operator or command block.
 * In other multiplayer games, entered by the player who opened a LAN game with cheats enabled, or is hosting their own multiplayer server
 * In singleplayer, if cheats were enabled at world creation (via the "More World Options..." button).

Some player commands are also available in singleplayer even when cheats are not enabled.

Note: In singleplayer worlds where cheats were not enabled at creation, they can be enabled on a temporary basis by opening the current game session to LAN play ( -> "Open to LAN", then "Allow Cheats" button and "Start LAN World"). You do not actually need to be on a LAN or have others join. This is not permanent, but will allow the use of commands until you quit the world, and changes you make via commands (items spawned, etc.) will be saved with the world. You can do this each time you start playing the world again. Note that this will disable game pausing, so from then on you should get somewhere safe before using the and Options screens.

Legend
In the listings below, command text is formatted as follows:

Target selectors
Instead of player names, it is possible to trigger multiple different targets at the same time, using the following variables:

Target selector arguments
After using a target (, ,  , or  ) you can optionally use arguments. This is how you use the arguments: NOTE: Make sure you do NOT add any spaces or full stops in between the brackets.

Example: Breakdown:

@p only specifies the nearest player.

x=1,y=30,z=26 sets the middle of the radius to x: 1, y: 30 and z: 26.

r=10 sets the (max) search radius to 10.

rm=2 sets the minimum search radius to 2.

m=1 only specifies players with gamemode 1 (creative).

c=3 specifies the three first players in the list (note: for @p, the default c is 1, unlike @e and @a).

l=25 specifies all players with xp-level 25 or less.

lm=3 specifies all players with xp-level 3 or more.

score_Kills_min=1 specifies all players with at least 1 "Kills" (score).

score_Deaths=2 specifies all players with at most 2 "Deaths" (score).

team=Red specifies all players in "Red" (team).

Alternatively, the coordinates and maximum (but not minimum!) radius can be provided more concisely as long as they're the first (up to four) arguments without keys, for instance:

is identical to the previous example.

Because the argument 'c' uses players from the end of a list first when negative,  may be used to select the farthest player instead of the nearest one (for @e[c=-1] this will select the farthest entity).

finds the farthest in the search radius (100).

If  is specified along with ,   and/or  , only entities within the overlap of both search regions will be found.

Please note that,   and   are offsets of the original  ,   and. They do not act as another set of coordinates to define a cubic area. In other words they are not the coordinates of the opposite corner of the cube you are defining, but rather the distance from the original,   and   to the opposite corner. For example, if you want to define a cube from the corner:      to the other corner:     , you would write the arguments as  , not   because  ,   and   "add" to the cubic area (50+50=100,10+10=20,50+150=200), they don't define it.

Player commands
These commands can be used in the chat window by any player who is allowed to connect to a server, and can also be used in singleplayer whether or not cheats are enabled.

| Gives a player an achievement, and all prerequisite achievements, or increment a statistic by 1. must use, where achievement_name is a valid achievement (see Scoreboard or Achievements for valid names), or  , where statistic_name is a valid statistic (see Scoreboard for valid statistics). If  is not specified, the achievement/statistic will be given to the command's executor. | must be a valid achievement/statistic name. is not optional in command blocks and player must be online. |- |

| Edits the data tags of the block at the location x, y, z. For more information on data tags, see the Data tags section.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid argument at the block located at x, y, z. |- |

| Clears the inventory of  (defaults to the executing player if unspecified) of the specified , with the specified. Does not remove more than  items. If no optional tags are specified, the entire inventory is cleared.

The  and   arguments will be added in 1.8 and are currently available only in the snapshots. | At least zero item(s) must be removed, and  must be online. Can output a comparator signal if successfully cleared item(s). can be set to -1 to clear regardless of Damage value, and  can be set to -1 to clear all of the selected item. |- |

| Clones the given area. The destination is (x, y, z), where the blocks are placed going into positive coordinate values. can be  (the default), which copies all blocks, or , which copies all non-air blocks, or  , which removes unnecessary blocks. can be, which replaces the cloned blocks with air, or  , which makes the command execute even if the area being cloned overlaps with the area blocks are being cloned to, or.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | The area being cloned and the area where the cloned blocks are going must both be rendered, must not overlap, and must be within the 4096 block limit (including air blocks) |- |

| Starts a new debug profiling session or stops the session currently running. It notifies about potential performance bottlenecks in the console when active and creates a profiler results file in the folder debug when stopped. | Can only stop if a session is running. Cannot be used in a command block. |- |

| Sets the default game mode that is shown on the world selection menu. New players that join the world will be put into the default game mode; i.e., if the default game mode is creative, new players will start in creative. This command cannot enable or disable Hardcore mode. | mode must be a valid game mode:,  ,  , or. The game modes can be abbreviated to "s/c/a/sp" or "0/1/2/3" respectively. |- |

| Changes the difficulty for as long as the server is running. If the server is restarted, the difficulty will go back to whatever difficulty is set in server.properties. | must be a valid difficulty: ,  ,  , or. The difficulties can be abbreviated to "p/e/n/h" or "0/1/2/3" respectively. |- |

| Gives the targeted player (or entity, via the @e target selector) the specified effect for the specified time (default is 30 seconds). Effects have a limit of 1,000,000 seconds, and the  field has a limit of 255. Effect id's can be found on the potion effects page. Setting  to 0 clears this effect. If you put the amplifier to a number of a variably high value, it will not give the desired amplifier. Setting  to true hides effect particles, if value not given, defaults to false. | If clearing an effect, the player must have this effect. must be a valid effect. player must be online. |- | | Clears all effects on  (or entity, via the @e target selector). | At least one effect must be removed, and  must be online. |- |

| Enchants the item that the player is currently holding, according to enchantment ID. Note that this works within the normal limitations of enchanting items. Enchantments can only be applied to items which can normally receive that specific enchantment. Enchantment levels can not be above the normal highest achievable for the selected enchantment. Conflicting or overpowering enchantment combinations usually prevented are also prevented with this command. | The enchantment ID must be valid, the level must be valid for this enchantment (unless the held item is also invalid), the held item must be able to accept this enchantment, the held item cannot have conflicting enchantments, and player must be online. |- |

| Runs  as though it was executed by , and as though   was located at x, y, z. The command will be run as though the entity has operator-level permission.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | entity must resolve to one or more valid entities (including players, who must be online if specified by name). x and z must be within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (inclusive). command must execute successfully. |- |

| Fills the given area with a block specified by,  , and. mode is either,  ,  , or.
 * replace - Destroys any blocks within the target location and replaces them with "TileName", without dropping item entities.
 * destroy - Destroys any blocks within the target location, dropping them as item entities, and replacing them with "TileName".
 * keep - Only replaces air blocks found in the fill area with "TileName".
 * hollow - Wraps only the outer layer of the fill area, creating a square box of "TileName", and replacing all blocks inside of the box area with air. Containers inside of the box will drop their contents, but not their block.
 * outline - Wraps only the outer layer of the fill area, creating a square box of "TileName". (Leaves all blocks leftover inside the box area alone and doesn't destroy them)

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | A starting point and an end point must be input followed by a block. Your feet (y-value), will be the point where blocks will begin to fill. Chunks must be loaded and can only fill within a 4096 block limit (including air blocks) |- |

| Replaces all blocks matching  and   in a given area with   and. If  and   are not given, any block will be replaced. Note that the replace operation does not support a  argument if   is given (use above syntax instead to replace any block and have dataTag support).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | A starting point and an end point must be input followed by a block. Your feet (y-value), will be the point where blocks will begin to fill. Chunks must be loaded and can only fill within a 4096 block limit (including air blocks) |- |

| Changes the game mode for. If no  is given, it will set your own gamemode. | must be a valid game mode: ,  ,  , or. The game modes can be abbreviated to "s/c/a/sp" or "0/1/2/3" respectively.

must currently be online. is not optional for command blocks. |- |

| Activates or deactivates the. If  is not given, displays the current status of.

Available rules are:
 * commandBlockOutput - Whether command blocks should notify admins when they perform commands
 * doDaylightCycle - Whether time progresses
 * doFireTick - Whether fire should spread and naturally extinguish
 * doMobLoot - Whether mobs should drop items
 * doMobSpawning - Whether mobs should naturally spawn
 * doTileDrops - Whether blocks should have drops
 * keepInventory - Whether the player should keep items in their inventory after death
 * mobGriefing - Whether Creepers, Endermen, Ghasts, Withers and Villagers should be able to change blocks or zombies, skeletons, and Zombie Pigmen can pick up items
 * naturalRegeneration - Whether the player can regenerate health naturally if their hunger is full enough

The following rules will be added in 1.8 and are currently available only in the snapshots:
 * logAdminCommands - Whether to log admin commands to server log
 * showDeathMessages - Whether a message appears in chat when a player dies
 * randomTickSpeed - How often a random tick occurs, such as plant growth, leaf decay, etc. Can be 0 to disable random updates.

Valid  for all gamerules are   or , except randomTickSpeed which can be 0 or any positive integer. | Succeeds in all cases - even absent/invalid  or a property besides   or. |- |

| Spawns  (defaults to 1) of the item defined by   with the specified   (defaults to 0) at the location of , using   for the "tag" NBT tag. For example typing /give John 5 30 1 {display:{Lore:["Wooden planks"]}} will give a player called John 30 blocks of Spruce Wood Planks with Lore that says "Wooden planks". | must be a valid ID or item name,   must be from 0 to 64, and   must be online. |- |

| Inflicts void damage to the target, killing the target instantly even if in Creative mode (a high-level Resistance effect cannot protect the player either). The text "Ouch! That looks like it hurt." will be displayed after executing. Useful when lost, stuck, or to restore health and hunger (assuming you can get your items back easily or the keepInventory gamerule is set to "true"). If  is not specified, the player running the command will be killed.

The  argument will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | is not optional in command blocks. |- |

| Spawns particles in a given area or at a given player/entity.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | name must be a valid particle name. x and z must be within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (inclusive). player | entity is not optional in command blocks. |- |

| Plays the selected sound to the selected player. The value of sound is any event defined in sounds.json (for example, mob.pig.say). Note that Resource Packs may add their own events to sounds.json; the command will successfully play these. File names are not used by this command; it strictly uses the events defined in sounds.json (which may not even be similar to the original file names and paths), and thus a resource pack adding new sound files must define events for them (this is not necessary when replacing old sounds which are already in defined events). If an event contains multiple sounds, this command will select randomly between them (chances are modified by each sound's "weight" property), just as the game normally would. For example, "mob.pig.say" will play one of several pig sounds at random, because the event has multiple sounds associated with it.

The coordinates x, y, and z are the coordinates to play the sound from. If prefixed with "~", they will be relative to the player's current location. Note that "~" is shorthand for "~0", and thus "~ ~ ~" can be used as a substitute for the player's current location.

The  argument controls the distance from which a sound may be heard. At values less than 1.0, the sound will be quieter and have a smaller sphere within which it may be heard. At values greater than 1.0, the sound will not actually grow louder, but its audible range (a 16-block radius at 1.0) will be multiplied by volume. There will always be a gradual falloff to silence based on distance from the center of the sphere.

The  argument controls the volume of the sound for players outside its normal audible sphere. If the player is outside the normal sphere, the sound will instead be centered some short distance (<4 blocks) from the player, and  will determine its volume.

The  argument alters both the pitch and the duration of the sound (which means that it's actually changing its speed). | must be online,   must be at least 0.0,   must be between 0.0 and 2.0 (inclusive),   must be between 0.0 and 1.0 (inclusive), and the player must be able to hear the sound from where it is played. |- |

| Opens your single-player game for LAN friends to join. This command appears in the singleplayer cheats. | Cannot be used in a command block. |- |

| Replaces an item in a certain slot with another item.

The  argument must be   (where * is replaced with a number for the correct inventory slot).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | The block must be a container block and the slot and item arguments must be correct. |- | | Replaces an item in a certain slot with another item. Works with players, horses, and villagers.

The  argument must be ,  ,  ,  ,  , or   (where * is replaced with a number for the correct inventory slot).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | The player must be online and the slot and item arguments must be correct. |- |

| Broadcasts  to all players on the server. If a multi-person target selector (e.g., @a) is used, the list of names is formatted as "name1, name2, and name3", or "name1 and name2" for two names. Therefore, regardless of any target selectors which are used, this command will only output once. | All target selectors (e.g., @p) in the message must evaluate. |- |

| See Scoreboard for more information. Scoreboard-specific commands. | Main Article |- |

| Displays the seed. This command can always be used in single-player mode, regardless of whether cheats are enabled or not. | Always succeeds (if user is a command block, player in singleplayer, or server op). |- |

| Places the block in the x, y and z coordinates specified. | must exist,   must exist if specified,   must be either ,   or   if specified and   must evaluate if specified. |- |

| Sets the world's spawn to the specified coordinates. The worldspawn is where you first spawn and where you respawn if you die and your bed is missing or obstructed. If no coordinates are specified, the world spawn will be set to the executor's current location. Note that a 10 chunk (160 block) radius around the worldspawn is kept loaded at all times. However this only applies if the chunks are already loaded when it is set. Setting it to a place where no player is will NOT cause the area to load. Also compasses (which in minecraft point to the worldspawn rather than north) will not update to the change until you reload the world. | x, y, and z must be within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (inclusive). x, y, and z are not optional in command blocks. |- |

| Sets the spawnpoint of that player to that position, or to the current position if x y and z are not specified. is optional if x y z are not specified; will set the spawnpoint of the user to their current location. NOTE: Spawnpoint coordinates must be specified in integers. No decimals.

Sleeping in a bed will also set a spawn point where the bed is, but you can only sleep in beds at night or when it rains. | must be online, and x, y, and z must be within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (inclusive). |- |

| This command allows players to spread out over a long or short distance.

x and z mark the center of the area across which players are to be spread.

is the rough minimum distance players will be spread apart.

is the maximum distance from x, z where players will be put. Note that this distance is not a circular radius; it represents the maximum distance on either coordinate (thus forming a box ranging from x-maxRange to x+maxRange and z-maxRange to z+maxRange).

may be true or false, and represents whether players should be moved individually or teams should be kept together.

is the list of players to spread. Names are separated by spaces. | x and z must be within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (exclusive),  must be at least 0,   must be at least 1.0 greater than , and there must not be too many players to fit within the area. If  is larger than 30,000,000, the command can fail with even one player if it attempts to place them outside the world boundary). Players do not spread to lava. |- |

| Spawns an entity. For example, to create a charged creeper named Powered Creeper at the player's current location:

| x and z must fall within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (inclusive), and y must be at least 0. If coordinates aren't specified the entity will spawn at the player's location (or inside a command block if the command was executed by one). |- |

| Sends a JSON message to specified player(s), allowing formatting and clickable actions in chat text. Color defaults to white and all formatting (bold, italic, etc.) defaults to false. | must be online, and the message text must be correctly coded in JSON. |- |

| Used to test whether the given  (or entity, by the @e target selector) could be located, and whether it has all tags specified by. A redstone comparator as output from a command block with this command will indicate the number of players/entities matched by it. For example, "testfor @a[r=3]" will output the number of players within 3 meters of the command block, and added in snapshot 14w02a, "testfor @e[type=Arrow,r=3] {inGround:1b}" will output the number of arrows stuck in a block within 3 meters. | and   must be valid and match some entity if specified. |- |

| Used to test whether a particular block is in the x, y and z coordinates specified. Datatags will not work unless a special syntax is used to specify what type of NBT tag is used (s for Short, b for Byte, l for Long, f for Float and d for Double). Also all relevant tags must be included even if they are unused (e.g.: Chest contents must include Slot, id, Damage, and Count.) | must exist,   must exist if specified, and   must evaluate if specified. |- |

| Compares the blocks at two locations in cuboid regions. (x1, y1, z1) and (x2, y2, z2) specifies the lowest and highest coordinate corners of the source region (the block pattern to check for), and (x, y, z) specifies the lowest coordinate corner of the destination region (the region to be checked).

is  (air blocks in the source region will match any block in the destination region) or   (all blocks must match exactly, even air).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | x1, z1, x2, z2, x, and z must fall within the range -29,999,984 to 29,999,984 (inclusive). y must be 0 to 189, and y2 must be 0 to 187. |- |

| Sets the world time. is an integer between 0 and 24000, inclusive, where 0 is dawn, 6000 midday, 12000 dusk and 18000 midnight. can be greater than 24000; in this case, the time of day wraps around, but the moon's phase is advanced. However, setting the time "backward" (earlier than the current time) does not change the moon. "time set day" sets the time to 1000, and "time set night" sets the time to 13000. | must be 0 or positive, or   or. |- | | Increments the world time, as above. | must be 0 or positive. The daytime wraps, and the moon's phase advances; adding 24000 will advance the moon's phase by one day. |- |

| Removes title from.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid online player. |- | | Resets subtitle, fadeIn time, stay time, and fadeOut time for.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid online player. |- | | Sets the subtitle text for. This is only displayed if a title is on the player's screen at the same time (can be empty).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid online player. must be a single word of text (not delimited by curly brackets) or a valid json specification. |- | | Sets the time in game ticks for title (and optional subtitle) to fade in, persist, and fade out, for.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid online player. |- | | Sets the title text for  and shows the title (optionally, with prespecified subtitle). Titles are displayed in the middle of your screen.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be a valid online player. must be a single word of text (not delimited by curly brackets) or a valid json specification. |- |

| Toggles rain and snow. | Always succeeds. |- |

| Teleports  (or entity, by the @e target selector) to the location of   (or entity, by the @e target selector). If no player/entity is specified, it will teleport yourself. | is not optional in command blocks. Both players must be online. |- | | Teleports  (or entity, by the @e target selector – or yourself if no player/entity is specified) to coordinates x,y,z. Can also relatively move the player/entity by adding the ~ character before the coordinate value. For example typing /tp John ~3 64 ~3 will teleport a player called John 3 blocks away from his current x and z, and to y 64. Additionally, y-rot and x-rot may optionally be used to specify the yaw and pitch in degrees - these also accept ~.

The rotation arguments will be added in 1.8 and are currently available only in the snapshots. | x and z must fall within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (exclusive), and y must be at least 0. target player is not optional in command blocks, and the player must be online. |- |

| Changes the weather for the specified duration. | must be at least 1, and cannot be greater than 1,000,000, and a valid weather condition must be provided. |- |

| Adds blocks to the current size of the world border.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots.

| Always succeeds even if the | Sets the center of the world border.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | x and z must fall within the range -30,000,000 to 30,000,000 (exclusive). |- |

| Sets the amount of damage inflicted per second per block past the world border buffer (defaults to 0.2). For example, if  is 0.1, a player 5 blocks outside the world border buffer will take 0.5 damage per second (damage less than half a heart might not change the visual health display, but will still accumulate).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be at least 0.0. |- |

| Sets the buffer distance outside the world border before damage begins to be inflicted (defaults to 5.0).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be at least 0.0. |- |

| Sets the diameter of the world border. is the new diameter. is the number of seconds it should take for the border to move from its previous location to the new location. If  is not specified, the diameter changes immediately.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must fall within the range 1 to 60,000,000 (inclusive). |- |

| Sets the distance inside the world border where visual warning of world border proximity begins (defaults to 5).

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be at least 0. |- |

| Sets the time before a moving world border intersects the player when visual warning of the world border starts (defaults to 15). For example, if  is 5, players will get a visual warning when the moving world border is 5 seconds or less away from passing their position.

The  command will be added in 1.8 and is currently available only in the snapshots. | must be at least 0. |- |

| Gives the specified user the given number of orbs. Maximum is 2,147,483,647 per command. Negative amounts may not be used to remove experience points. | can be at most 2,147,483,647. is not optional in command blocks, and player must be online. |- | | Gives  the   number of experience levels. Maximum is 2,147,483,647 — if a player is given levels pushing them past this limit, they get reset to 0. Negative amounts may be used to remove experience levels. | must be between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647, inclusive. is not optional in command blocks, and player must be online. |}

Multiplayer-only commands
These commands are only available in multiplayer mode, and are usable by ops (operators) from the server console as well as through the chat window when prefixed by the command character.

None of these commands make use of target selectors and, with the exception of the list command, none of these commands can be executed by a command block.

Many of these commands can be used on players who have never been to the server, or even on names which are not (or cannot be) registered as Minecraft accounts.

Data tags
NBT tags can be specified for items and entities created with the, and other commands. Data tags are data structures. The format is JSON, although it is not strict (lenient). The data is represented as a comma separated list of pairs. Each pair has the format. The key is the name of the NBT tag and the value is the data that should be assigned to it. Tag names are case-sensitive, and whitespace outside keys or values is ignored.

The value can be different types:


 * String is a piece of text, can be wrapped with double-quotes. Double quotes have to be used if the String contains commas, curly braces or square brackets. To use double-quotes inside Strings, the quote is escaped by a backslash . When using most commands, escaping is disabled (except for double quotes) and keys must not be quoted (probably a bug ). This causes an issue where trailing backslashes do not work (as do any other things that need to be escaped), even when escaped properly. The reason is that it escapes the quotation mark after the string which causes a malformed JSON object.
 * Number are 1 or more digits that can have a leading sign ( / ). They're classified in Integers, that don't have a decimal mark, Doubles, that uses a dot as a decimal mark, and Floats, that also have   appended after the number. Examples:  ;  ; &
 * List (or 'Array') is multiple, comma separated values wrapped with square brackets. The containing values do not need to be of the same type.
 * Boolean can either be  or , but using Numbers works, too. When using numbers, 0 is false, everything else is true.
 * Compound or 'Object' is a container for data structures (as explained above). They are wrapped with curly braces.
 * Notice: The Data tag itself is a Compound. Example: 


 * null This is a placeholder an empty value. Do not put quotes.

When commands such as /testfor, /testforblock, and /clear are used to match NBT tags, they only check for the presence of the given tags in the target entity/block/item. This means that the entity/block/item may have additional tags and will still match. This is true even for lists/arrays: the order of a list is not acknowledged, and as long as every requested element is in the list, it will match even if there are additional elements.

For a complete listing of defined tags (though not all can be modified by commands), see:
 * Blocks
 * Entities
 * Mobs
 * Projectiles (arrows, fireballs, thrown potions, etc.)
 * Items (items on the ground)
 * Vehicles (boats, minecarts, etc.)
 * Dynamic Tiles (primed TNT, falling sand/gravel)
 * Other Entities (firework rockets, paintings, and item frames)
 * Tile Entities (chests, furnaces, command blocks, mob spawners, signs, etc.)
 * Player
 * Items (items in player's inventory or containers)

For a complete list of identifiers, see:
 * blocks
 * items
 * entities
 * enchantments
 * status/potion effects
 * attributes

Raw JSON Text
The command uses a specific lenient JSON format for raw chat messages. Similar to the NBT format notation above, concepts such as Strings, Objects (Compounds), and Lists are used to represent the various properties of raw chat.

For a direct tutorial to tellraw commands, see this thread. For a tool to easily create tellraw commands, see this. Note that both links are external to the Minecraft Wiki and may be outdated.

The format of "" is a JSON Object which supports the following (mostly optional) elements:
 * The base chat component Object
 * : A string representing raw text to display directly in chat. Note that selectors such as "@a" and "@p" are not translated into player names; use selector instead.
 * : A list of additional objects, sharing the same format as the base object.
 * A list element with the same format as the base object (recursive). Note that all properties of this object are inherited by children except for text, extra, translate, with, and score. This means that children will retain the same formatting and events as this object unless they explicitly override them.
 * : The color to render this text in. Valid values are "black", "dark_blue", "dark_green", "dark_aqua", "dark_red", "dark_purple", "gold", "gray", "dark_gray", "blue", "green", "aqua", "red", "light_purple", "yellow", "white", and "reset" (cancels out the effects of colors used by parent objects). Technically, "bold", "underline", "italic", "strikethrough", and "obfuscated" are also accepted, but it may be better practice to use the tags below for such formats.
 * : Boolean (true/false) - whether to render text in bold. Defaults to false.
 * : Boolean (true/false) - whether to render text underlined. Defaults to false.
 * : Boolean (true/false) - whether to render text in italics. Defaults to false.
 * : Boolean (true/false) - whether to render text with a strikethrough. Defaults to false.
 * : Boolean (true/false) - whether to render text obfuscated. Defaults to false.
 * : When the text is shift-clicked by a player, this string will be inserted in their chat input. It will not overwrite any existing text the player was writing.
 * : Allows for events to occur when the player clicks on text.
 * : The action to perform when clicked. Valid values are "open_url" (opens value as a URL in the player's default web browser), "run_command" (has value entered in chat as though the player typed it themselves. This can be used to run commands, but the command will fail if the player does not have the required permissions to use it), and "suggest_command" (similar to "run_command", but the text only appears in the player's chat input, and is not automatically entered. Unlike insertion, this will replace the existing contents of the chat input).
 * : The URL, chat, or command used by the specified action. Note that commands must be prefixed with the usual "/" slash.
 * : Allows for a tooltip to be displayed when the player hovers their mouse over text.
 * : The type of tooltip to show. Valid values are "show_text" (shows raw JSON text), "show_item" (shows the tooltip of an item which can have NBT tags), "show_achievement" (shows formatted text describing an achievement or statistic. Normal achievement names are green, final achievement names are dark_purple, and statistic names are gray. In addition, a description is given for achievements), and "show_entity" (shows an entity's name, possibly its type, and its UUID).
 * : The formatting of this tag varies depending on the action. Note that "show_text" is the only action to support an Object as the value; all other action values are Strings and should thus be wrapped in quotes.
 * "show_text": Can be either a raw String of text, or an Object with the same formatting as this base object. Note that clickEvent and hoverEvent do not function within the tooltip, but the formatting and extra tags still work.
 * "show_item": A string formatted like item NBT data. Contains the "id" tag, and optionally the "Damage" tag and "tag" tag (which is the same compound used as "dataTag" in the command).
 * "show_achievement": The achievement or statistic's name. This uses the same format as achievement and statistic Scoreboard objective criteria and the command.
 * "show_entity": A string formatted like a compound with the string values "type" (such as "Zombie"), "name", and "id" (should be an entity UUID, but can actually be any string).
 * : The translation identifier of text to be displayed using the player's selected language. This identifier is the same as the identifiers found in lang files from assets or resource packs. The translated text will only be displayed if the text string is not used.
 * : A list of chat component arguments and/or string arguments to be used by translate.
 * The arguments are text corresponding to the arguments used by the translation string in the current language, in order (for example, the first list element corresponds to "%1$s" in a translation string).
 * : A compound for displaying a player's score in an objective. Displays "?" if the player is not tracked in the given objective. Ignored completely if text or translate is present.
 * : The name of the player whose score should be displayed. Selectors (such as @p) cannot be used, but "fake" player names created by the scoreboard system can be used. In addition, if the name is "*", it will show the player's own score (for example,  will show every online player their own score in the "obj" objective).
 * : The internal name of the objective to display the player's score in.
 * : Optional. A default value for the score. May never be used, however: although the game reads this value, it will be overwritten by the correct score or "?" when displayed.
 * : A string containing a selector (@p,@a,@r, or @e) and, optionally, selector arguments. Unlike text, the selector will be translated into the correct player/entity names. If more than one player/entity is detected by the selector, it will be displayed in a form such as 'Name1 and Name2' or 'Name1, Name2, Name3, and Name4'. Ignored completely if text, translate, or score is present.

Due to the extra tag, the above format may be recursively nested to produce very complex and functional text strings. However, a raw json string doesn't have to be complicated at all: virtually all properties are optional and may be left out.

To be valid, each object must have at least either text, translate, or score (everything else is optional). As a matter of shorthand, however, the entire Object may be substituted for a String. In this case, that string will be considered the value of the text property. For example,  is equivalent to. This shorthand substitution is valid anywhere a raw text object is required (including the base  argument of, the elements of the extra list, and the value of a "show_text" hover_event).

Finally, unlike other commands using JSON, Strings support Unicode via the notation , where #### is the Unicode hexadecimal number for the desired character.