Shovels are tools used to ease the process of collecting dirt and other blocks.
Obtaining
Crafting
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Any Planks or Cobblestone or Iron Ingot or Gold Ingot or Diamond + Stick |
||
| Damaged Matching Shovel | The durability of the two shovels is added together, plus an extra 5% durability. |
Natural generation
Unknown item enchanted-iron-shovel.
| Item | Structure | Container | Quantity | Chance |
|---|
Unknown item enchanted-diamond-shovel.
| Item | Structure | Container | Quantity | Chance |
|---|
- Notes
Zombies
Zombies have a 0.67% (3.33% in Hard difficulty) chance of spawning with an iron shovel. They have an 8.5% (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II and 11.5% with Looting III) chance of dropping that shovel if they are killed by the player. It will usually be badly damaged, and may be enchanted: 0%–25% on Normal difficulty and 3.125%–25% on Hard difficulty, varying with regional difficulty, and enchanted as if on an enchantment table at level 5–22.
Trading
Tool smith villagers sell enchanted iron shovels for 5 to 7 emeralds as part of their tier 1 trades. The enchantments will be the same as might be obtained from an enchantment table at levels 5–19.
Usage
Shovels have different amounts of uses based on the type:
- Golden: 33
- Wooden: 60
- Stone: 132
- Iron: 251
- Diamond: 1562
Digging
A shovel can be used to break some materials faster. When breaking a block, it uses 1 durability. For blocks that break instantly, it uses 0 durability.
Speed
The following table summarizes the speed at which different quality shovels perform on different block types. Values with a red background indicate that no resource will be dropped when the block is destroyed without a shovel.
| Block | Breaking time[A] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default | Wooden | Stone | Iron | Diamond | Netherite | Golden | |
| Clay | 0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Farmland | 0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Grass Block | 0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Grass Path | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Gravel | 0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Mycelium | 0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Podzol | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Coarse Dirt | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Dirt | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Red Sand | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Sand | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Soul Sand | 0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Snow | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Snow (layer) | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
- ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.
Grass paths
A shovel can be used to create a grass path by using (not digging) the shovel on a grass block. When creating a grass path, it uses 1 durability.
Weapon
If you hit a mob while holding a shovel, it will be a stronger attack than if barehanded. Shovels take 2 damage when used as a weapon.
Java Edition
Shovels have an attack speed modifier of -1 meaning they take 1 second to recover. Shovels deal different damage based on the type:
| Attack speed | Attack damage | Damage/Second (DPS) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.5 |
3.5 |
4.5 |
5.5 |
2.5 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5.5 |
Legacy Console and Bedrock editions
In the Legacy Console and Bedrock editions, shovels always attack instantly and do the following damage:
| Attack damage | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Enchantments
A shovel can receive the following enchantments:
Crafting ingredient
In Bedrock Edition, wooden shovels are used as "paddles" when crafting the boat.
Fuel
Wooden shovels can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per shovel.
Smelting ingredient
| Name | Ingredients | Smelting recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Iron Nugget or Gold Nugget |
Iron Shovel or Golden Shovel + Any fuel |
Data values
Shovel/ID
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| MOAR Tools | Construct one type of each tool. | Construct one pickaxe, one shovel, one axe, and one hoe with the same material. | 15G | Bronze | ||
Video
Shovel/video
History
| indev | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.31 (December 31, 2009, 1) | Added iron shovel, they can neither be obtained nor do they have any use. | ||||
| 0.31 (January 11, 2010, 1) | A shovel is used to gather materials like dirt, sand and gravel 400% faster than by hand. | ||||
| When starting in a new world the player is given one of each tools. | |||||
| 0.31 (January 24, 2010) | A complete toolset is no longer given to the player on starting a new world. Instead there are multiple chests in the later called "Indev House" containing a stack of every available block / item including tools. | ||||
| 0.31 (January 28, 2010) | A shovel held by the player appears more 3d like. | ||||
| 0.31 (January 29, 2010) | Tools have tiers, in addition to iron, shovels can now be made from wood, stone and diamond. | ||||
| Added crafting recipe for iron shovels as well as the newly introduced variants. | |||||
| 0.31 (January 30, 2010) | Shovels can now be made out of gold. | ||||
| 0.31 (February 1, 2010, 1) | Tools take damage when being used. Better tools last longer. | ||||
| release | |||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w18a | Wooden shovels can now be used as fuel in a furnace. | |||
| 12w21a | Blacksmith villagers now sell diamond shovels for 7 emeralds, and iron shovels for 4–5 emeralds. | ||||
| 1.8 | 14w02a | Tool smith villagers now sell enchanted iron shovels for 5–7 emeralds. The previous trades are unavailable, making diamond shovels non-renewable. | |||
| 1.9 | 15w31a | A shovel can be used on a grass block to create grass path blocks. | |||
| Enchanted iron or diamond shovels can now be found in end city chests. | |||||
| 15w34a | Shovels now use the "attack strength" combat mechanic meter. The time it takes for the meter to fill up for a shovel is 0.8 seconds. | ||||
| 15w34c | Shovels do more damage and take longer to recover. | ||||
| 15w35a | Shovel damage reduced. | ||||
| 15w41a | Wooden shovels are now used to craft boats. | ||||
| 15w50a | Added sound: item.shovel.flatten. | ||||
| 16w04a | Wooden shovels are no longer used to craft boats. | ||||
| 1.11.1 | 16w50a | Golden and iron shovels now smelt down into one of their respective nuggets. | |||
| 1.13 | 17w47a | Prior to The Flattening, these items' numeral IDs were 269, 273, 256, 277 and 284. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| 0.2.0 | Added stone shovels. | ||||
| 0.3.0 | Added wooden shovels. | ||||
| 0.3.2 | Added diamond, iron and gold shovels. | ||||
| 0.11.0 | build 1 | Wooden shovels are now used to craft boats. | |||
| Iron shovels are now available in the creative inventory. | |||||
| A shovel can be used on a grass block to create grass path blocks. | |||||
| build 11 | Wooden, stone, golden, and diamond shovels are now available in the creative inventory. | ||||
| build 12 | Removed all shovels from creative. | ||||
| build 13 | Re-added shovels to creative mode. | ||||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.1 | build 1 | Iron and golden shovels are now smeltable. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | Added shovels (all five types). | |
| TU53 | CU43 | 1.49 | Patch 23 | Patch s3 | Iron and golden shovels are now smeltable. |
Issues
Issues relating to "Shovel" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.