Ice

This article is about the regular form of ice. For the variant that does not melt, see Packed Ice. For other uses, see Ice (disambiguation).

Ice

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	0.5
Hardness	0.5
Luminant	No
Transparent	JE: Partial (-2 to light) BE: Partial (mob spawning possible)
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

Ice is a translucent solid block.

Obtaining

Ice can be easily destroyed without tools, but the use of a pickaxe speeds up the process. It can be broken instantly with Efficiency III on a diamond pickaxe. However, the block drops only when using a tool enchanted with Silk Touch. If mined without Silk Touch, the block drops nothing, and instead is replaced with water if there is a block under the ice block.

Block	Ice
Hardness	0.5
Tool
Breaking time
Default	0.75
Wooden	0.4
Stone	0.2
Iron	0.15
Diamond	0.1
Netherite	0.1
Golden	0.1

Natural generation

Ice can be found naturally as part of the landscape in snowy biomes from frozen lakes, rivers, and oceans. It can also be found in igloos, ice spikes, iceberg, snowy slopes, lofty peaks, also on landscape of snow capped peaks biomes.

Post-generation

Snowy biomes

See also: Ice farming

Water source blocks in a snowy biome eventually freeze into ice if exposed to the sky from directly above, the light level immediately adjacent to the water block on all sides is less than 13, and there is at least one horizontally adjacent non-water block. This can happen at any time of day, and in any weather condition. If the highest adjacent light level is 12, an ice block alternately melts and re-freezes when it receives a block tick.

Water also freezes into ice in cold biomes, as long as the altitude is high enough for snowfall.

Ice Bomb

When an ice bomb is thrown into water, it transforms the water in a 3×3×3 cube centered around the projectile into ice. This works for source water or flowing water upon hit.

Usage

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Packed Ice	Ice

Despite being created by a 3×3 recipe, packed ice is not a storage block, because it cannot be crafted back into ice. The same applies to the next tier of compression, blue ice.

Speed

Ice is slightly slippery, causing entities (excluding minecarts) to slide, including items. This allows for increased speed of items in water currents, by placing ice blocks under the water current. Items already travel at high speeds in water currents because they float, so ice block water streams are less necessary for item transportation.

A player who sprints and jumps repeatedly on ice travels faster than on any other block type. The player can travel even faster if they sprint and spam jump in a 2-block-high corridor with ice on the floor, allowing the player to accelerate to extremely high speeds, although this will cost them a lot of hunger.

When a non-full block is placed on top of ice, the block has the same "slipperiness" as the ice below it. ‌^{[JE only]} This feature is intentionally programmed into the game.

Boat highway

Like other entities, boats travel extremely quickly on ice, where it can reach an average speed of 40 m/s, much faster than the 8 m/s speed on water. More beneficially, unlike water, ice can be placed in the Nether, allowing players to construct boat highways made of ice in the dimension, to make use of the 1:8 distance travel ratio, and travel at a speed equivalent to more than 300 m/s between locations in the Overworld.

Creating water

Ice can be used to create water either by its melting or being broken. If there is another block directly underneath the ice block, the ice reverts to water when broken.

Ice also melts into water if the light level immediately next to it on any side is higher than 11, from light sources other than sunlight, but ice does not melt from sunlight. In Education and Bedrock editions, ice also melts when near a heat block, though heat blocks do not produce light.

Compared to water buckets, ice has the benefit of being able to stack in the inventory. Therefore, carrying ice instead of water buckets can be much more convenient, if the player wants to create a lot of water sources.

If ice melts or is broken in the Nether, no water is produced.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	block.glass.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	None	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.glass.fall	None	0.5	0.75	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	block.glass.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	16
	Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	block.glass.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	1.0	0.8	16
	Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	block.glass.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition: ^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
?	Blocks	Once the block has broken	dig.glass	?	0.8
?	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.glass	?	?
?	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	hit.glass	?	0.5
?	Blocks	Jumping from the block	jump.glass	?	?
?	Blocks	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.glass	?	?
?	Blocks	Walking on the block	step.glass	?	?
?	Blocks	When the block is placed	use.glass	?	0.8

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Resource location	Block tags (JE)	Form	Translation key
Ice	ice	ice mineable/pickaxe geode_invalid_blocks	Block & Item	block.minecraft.ice

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Resource location	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Ice	ice	79	Block & Item	tile.ice.name

History

Java Edition Classic
May 20, 2009					Notch briefly mentioned, "Winter is an awesome idea. I can see snow and tiles slowly getting covered in a layer of snow. Also, ice on lakes. :D"
May 21, 2009					Notch shows interest in adding ice as a slippery block.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.4					Added ice.
					The model of ice in item form is opaque.
					Ice replaces surface water in Winter Mode worlds.
v1.0.5					The hardness of ice has been increased from 0.1 to 0.5.
					Ice no longer turns into water when broken if the ice block has air beneath.
v1.0.5_01					Water exposed to snowfall now freezes to ice.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4			Mining ice with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch now causes ice to drop, which can then be brought to the Nether as a source of water.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6			Ice blocks can no longer be collected with the Silk Touch enchantment because of the water loophole above.
1.3.1		12w17a			Ice blocks can now be legitimately obtained in survival mode by harvesting them with a Silk Touch enchanted tool.
					Ice no longer produces water in the Nether.
1.7.2		?			The model of ice in item form is now transparent.
		13w41a			Ice, water and portals are now visible through each other.
					The outwards appearance of ice has effectively changed due to translucent block handling changes. These internal faces of ice were indeed always rendered, but could not actually be seen from outside due to the closest translucent texture always occluding any further translucent planes, and as such could only be seen from inside.
		13w42a			The appearence of ice has been changed back to its previous form.
1.8		14w05b			Mobs now suffocate inside of ice.
1.9		15w43a			Ice blocks now generate as a part of igloos.
		15w51a			Water produced by melting ice blocks now flows.
		16w05a			Boats now travel extremely fast on ice and packed ice.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 79.
		18w15a			Mobs can now spawn on top of ice.
		18w19a			Only polar bears can now spawn on top of ice.
		pre2			Ice can now be used to craft packed ice.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of ice has been changed.
		19w13a			Ice is no longer fully transparent.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Pre-release					Added ice.
v0.1.0					Ice has an item form.
					Ice in inventory has an icon.
v0.2.0					The texture and model[verify] of ice have been changed.
v0.8.0		build 2			The texture of ice has been changed. The model of ice in item form is transparent.
		build 7			The texture of ice has been changed to before build 1.
v0.12.1		build 1			Ice blocks can now be legitimately obtained in survival mode by harvesting them with a Silk Touch enchanted tool.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0		beta 1.2.0.2			Ice blocks are now fully transparent.
1.4.0		beta 1.2.14.2			Ice blocks now generate naturally in the new icebergs and deep frozen oceans.
		beta 1.2.20.1			When a thrown ice bomb hits water, it now transforms water into ice in 3×3 area.
1.8.0		beta 1.8.0.10			Ice can now be used to craft packed ice.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of ice has been changed.
1.16.220		beta 1.16.220.50			Ice now generate in snowy slopes, lofty peaks, and snow capped peaks biomes.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added ice.
TU14		1.04			Ice blocks can now be obtained in survival mode by harvesting them with a Silk Touch enchanted pickaxe.
					The ability for ice to create water in the Nether has been removed.
		1.90			The texture of ice has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added ice.

• 

  Melting ice was once a common way to form floating water sources.

Issues

Issues relating to "Ice" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• When riding a pig on ice using a saddle, the pig moves incredibly fast, making journeys across long-frozen lakes easier.
• By sprinting and jumping while on ice and inside a 2-block tall tunnel, it is possible to move 16 blocks a second, twice as fast as a full-speed minecart. By replacing the 2-block ceiling with trapdoors, it's possible to travel 1000 blocks in 54 seconds, or 18.518 blocks per second. However, this drains the player's hunger bar extremely quickly at roughly 1 unit per second.
• Sugar cane can be generated next to the ice, though they drop as items if updated. This can be observed at random when running through a snowy biome.
• Attempting to set ice on fire with a flint and steel causes no flames to appear, but the flint and steel's durability still decreases by 1.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} The same thing happens with glass and the sides of non-flammable blocks.
• Ice is classified as a transparent block and therefore does not conduct redstone.
• Snow layers are the only transparent block that cannot be placed on ice.
• When a player holds an ice block, the normals of the smaller model are flipped inside out, giving a strange effect.

Gallery

• 

  Naturally generated ice on a frozen ocean.

• 

  Another view of naturally generating at a frozen ocean.

• 

  Naturally generated ice on a deep-frozen ocean.

• 

  Chunk borders as seen in a patch of ice.

• 

  The effect of a torch on ice exposed to the sky. Note that some blocks are at a light level that lets them alternately melt and freeze.

• 

  The melting pattern of a torch to ice.

• 

  The melting pattern of lava to ice.

• 

  Ice melting because of the nearby torch animation.

Java Edition

• 

  Naturally generated ice in an older revision of a frozen ocean.

Bedrock Edition

• 

  Naturally generated ice in a legacy frozen ocean.

See also

• Packed Ice
• Frosted Ice
• Blue Ice