Clocks are time-telling devices that display the current in-game position of the sun and the moon. Clocks only function properly in the Overworld.
Obtaining[]
Crafting[]
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Gold Ingot + Redstone Dust |
Natural generation[]
| Item | Structure | Container | Quantity | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Java Edition | ||||
| Clock | Ruined portal | Chest | 1 | 7.3% |
| Shipwreck | Map chest | 1 | 7.7% | |
| Bedrock Edition | ||||
| Clock | Ruined portal | Chest | 1 | 7.3% |
| Shipwreck | Map chest | 1 | 7.7% | |
Trading[]
Expert-level librarian villagers have a 1⁄3 (roughly 33.3%) chance to sell a single clock for 4 emeralds as part of their trades.[Bedrock Edition only]
Expert-level librarian villagers have a 1⁄2 (50%) chance to sell a clock for 5 emeralds.[Java Edition only]
Usage[]
Clock animation
The clock dial consists of two halves, a day side and a night side. The dial spins clockwise slowly to indicate the time of day, corresponding to the sun or moon's actual position in the sky. The player is able to sleep a few seconds after the clock shows exactly dusk.
The dial always shows the current in-game time when in the Overworld, regardless of where it appears. This includes a player's hand, an inventory slot, a crafting grid, an item frame, or even as a dropped item. For a clock to be mounted on a wall, an item frame is required.
Because there is no day/night cycle in the Nether or the End, clocks do not work properly in these dimensions. Instead, the dial rotates rapidly and randomly in Java Edition or clockwise in Bedrock Edition, making them useless.
Piglins[]
Piglins are attracted to clocks and run toward any clock on the ground, and inspect it for 6 to 8 seconds before putting it in their inventory.
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Identifier | Form | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clock | clock | Item | item.minecraft.clock |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Form | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clock | clock | 393 | Item | item.clock.name |
Achievements[]
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Oooh, shiny! | Distract a Piglin using gold | Give a piglin a gold item while it is aggressive toward the player. | 30G | Silver | ||
Advancements[]
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Oh Shiny | Distract Piglins with gold | Nether | While aggravated, give a piglin one of these 25 gold-related items in the #piglin_loved item tag:
| nether/distract_piglin
|
Video[]
Note: This video doesn't state that clocks can be found in shipwrecks or ruined portals because the video was released in an earlier version.
History[]
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v1.2.0 | ? |  Added clocks.
| |||
| They have 228 visually distinct frames due to how the texture is generated – see the section below. | |||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a | Librarian villagers now sell clocks for 10-11 emeralds, making them renewable. | |||
| 1.5 | 13w02a |  Clocks now use the new animation feature included in texture packs. As a result, they are considerably less precise, having only 64 frames. | |||
| 1.8 | 14w02a | Librarian villagers now sell clocks for 10-12 emeralds. | |||
| 1.9 | 15w31a | Clocks are now broken up into individual textures, instead of having every individual frame on one vertical strip like with animated textures. | |||
| 1.13 | 17w47a | Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 347. | |||
| 18w14a | Clocks can now be found in shipwreck map rooms. | ||||
| 1.16 | 20w09a | Clocks can now be used to distract piglins.[1] | |||
| 20w16a | Clocks now generate in ruined portal chests. | ||||
| 20w19a | Clocks no longer work in the recipe book.[2] | ||||
| 20w22a | Clocks no longer work in the villager trading GUI.[3] | ||||
| 1.17 | 20w48a |  The texture of clocks has been changed to match the new gold ingot texture from the texture update. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.2.0 |  Added clocks.
| ||||
| Clocks currently have no function or legitimate method of obtaining them. | |||||
| v0.8.0 | build 1 | Clocks are now functional and craftable. They have been added into the Creative inventory. | |||
| The texture of clocks has been changed. They use an predefined texture file with 64 different frames. | |||||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.0.4 | alpha 1.0.4.0 | Librarian villagers now sell clocks for 10-12 emeralds. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.4.0 | beta 1.2.20.1 | Clocks can now be found inside map room chests in shipwrecks. | |||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.4 | Trading has been changed, librarian villagers now have 1⁄3 chance to sell a clock for 4 emeralds as part of their trades. | |||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.16.0.57 | Clocks now generate in ruined portal chests. | |||
| 1.17.0 | beta 1.17.0.54 | The texture of clocks has been changed to match the new gold ingot texture from the texture update. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added clocks. |
| TU69 | 1.76 | Patch 38 | Clocks can now be found in shipwreck map rooms. | ||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added clocks. | ||||
Texture generation prior to Java Edition 13w02a[]
To generate its appearances, the clock combined 2 textures, one being the actual clock, and the other being the dial.
Clock texture file
dial.png
The logic solely for mixing the two (as there is additional logic for moving the dial in a wobbly fashion that isn't pertinent here) is as follows:
The procedural and pre-rendered clocks compared. The difference in precision is far more obvious in-game. If the modern clock sprite were to be procedurally generated it would only have 218 unique frames, as the window to the dial is slightly different.
# Assume RGBA values are handled as 0.0 to 1.0 float values
def setup_clock_sprite (item: Image, dial: Image, dial_angle: float, output: Image):
rx = sin(-dial_angle)
ry = cos(-dial_angle)
for y in range(item.height):
for x in range(item.width):
pix = item.get_pixel(x, y)
if pix.r == pix.b and pix.g == 0 and pix.b > 0:
u: float = -(x / (item.width - 1) - 0.5)
v: float = y / (item.height - 1) - 0.5
dial_pix = dial.get_pixel(
int(((u * ry + v * rx + 0.5) * dial.width)) % dial.width,
int(((v * ry - u * rx + 0.5) * dial.height)) % dial.height
)
dial_pix.rgb *= pix.r
pix = dial_pix
output.set_pixel(x, y, pix)
This results in the item and dial sprites being mixed by fuchsia areas of the clock sprite, as well as being shaded by them (contrary to the popular belief that they were mixed solely on the two shades found on the vanilla sprite). This allowed for the clock to be animated precisely, having 230 visually distinct frames, in an era where block and item sprites couldn't be animated individually without mods. The pre-rendered animated approach, used in 1.5 onwards, is far less precise, with only 64 different frames.
A valid albeit silly clock sprite, showing how the fuchsia areas are used to mix the sprite and dial; Note how the dial gets flipped horizontally.
Due to an oversight with how assets were loaded however, the item sprite for clocks couldn't be overridden by texture packs (as they are set to always load from the vanilla gui/items.png atlas, stored in minecraft.jar, rather than the one of the currently active texture pack.
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Clock" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia[]
- In Java Edition, a clock can be viewed under the item statistics page as long as one obtained a clock at some point.
- In Java Edition, the default resource pack for the clock contains 64 individual frames, each frame lasting about 18.75 seconds in real time (375 ticks) (1350 seconds (22 minutes, 30 seconds) in Minecraft time).
- When the time of day changes suddenly, such as after sleeping or when
/timeis used, the clock dial spins rapidly to catch up. - Although clocks do not function in the Nether or the End, the actual daylight cycle does continue.
Gallery[]
A clock in an item frame on a wall in a player's base, showing the night is near.
Early-game player holding a clock.
A clock placed in an item frame.
