Minecraft uses the standard control scheme of mouse and keyboard controls as input. The game cannot be played using only a mouse or only a keyboard.
Default Controls
| Mouse Controls | Function |
|---|---|
| Left Button | Destroy blocks; Attack; Toggle Switches. |
| Right Button | Place blocks; Toggle Switches; Use special blocks like Chests and Workbenches. |
| Movement | Turning; Aiming; Third person camera movement. |
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| W | Move forward. |
| A | Strafe left. |
| S | Move backward. |
| D | Strafe right. |
| Spacebar | Jump. |
| Left Shift | Sneak. |
| I | Open up the Inventory. |
| Q | Drop a held item. |
| F | Toggle Fog, identical to Render distance in Options menu. If Shift is held while pressing F, the fog will be toggled in reverse. (Fog gets further away, instead of closer) |
| T | Chat (Multiplayer only). |
| Esc | Open up the menu and give back cursor control. |
Function Keys
There are some keys that are not changeable via Options that perform special functions within the stand alone client.
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| F1 | Holding this key will hide all GUI elements, including the menu and whatever item you are holding. When held while in third person, it will show you the front of your character. This was added in the Halloween Update to make taking scene screenshots easier.
Pressing F2 while F1 is held will take a screenshot and place it in %appdata%\.minecraft\screenshots on Windows, or ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/screenshots in OSX. |
| F3 | Holding this key will show extra debug information on the top of the screen along side the Minecraft version, such as FPS (frames per second), chunk updates, available memory, and a performance graph.
Pressing S while holding F3 will reload all web-loaded client resources. |
| F5 | Toggles between first and third person. Third person is not advised for playing since your cursor is always on your head. |
| F10 | Gives cursor control back to Windows and freezes the game until it is clicked. However, the cursor is trapped inside the game's window, making this useless. |
| F11 | Toggles full-screen mode. (Windows and OSX)
Some people are experiencing a bug while exiting from full-screen mode that causes an inescapable black screen. When that's the case, use ALT+TAB to switch out of Minecraft AND switch it back to windowed mode. |
Note: Function keys that must be held (F1 and F3) can instead be toggled by pressing alt afterwards. This does not work in full-screen mode, and may not work on all operating systems.
Old Keys
Below are the list of keys which are no longer usable in the current version of the game.
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| B | Brings up the list of usable blocks in Creative Classic. |
| Enter | Sets Spawn Point in Creative Classic. |
| R | Respawn at spawn point in Creative Classic. |
| F5 | Toggles rain in Creative Classic. |
XBox KinectTM
There is currently a competition on the Minecraft Forums to develop a tool to allow the XBox KinectTM to be used to play Minecraft. To see the official rules, view here.
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