Shovels are auxiliary tools used to ease the process of collecting dirt, sand, gravel, clay and snow. Shovels are only necessary to collect snowballs from snow; all other blocks for which shovels are useful can be successfully harvested by hand.
Uses
A shovel is used to dig some materials faster. A shovel is not required to advance forward in the game, it only makes the removal and collection of some materials faster.
Materials that shovels dig more efficiently
Crafting
Shovels are crafted using 2 sticks and 1 unit of a tool material:
| Ingredients | Input » Output | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sticks + Wood or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamond Gems |
Template:Grid/Crafting Table | Used to dig Dirt, Grass, Sand, Gravel, Clay and Snow faster than by hand. Shovels are required to dig snowballs. |
Speed and Durability
The following table summarizes the speed at which different quality shovels perform on different block types. Values marked with (*) and highlighted in red indicate that no resource will be dropped when the block is destroyed by that quality of shovel. Green cells indicate the fastest tool type.
| Shovels | Nothing | Wood | Stone | Iron | Diamond | Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durability | 8 | 60 | 132 | 251 | 1562 | 33 |
| Clay | 0.9 secs | 0.45 secs | 0.25 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs |
| Grass | 0.9 secs | 0.45 secs | 0.25 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs |
| Gravel | 0.9 secs | 0.45 secs | 0.25 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs |
| Dirt | 0.75 secs | 0.4 secs | 0.2 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs | 0.1 secs |
| Sand | 0.75 secs | 0.4 secs | 0.2 secs | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs | 0.1 secs |
| Snow Block | 1 sec* | 0.15 secs | 0.1 secs | 0.05 secs | 0.05 secs | 0.05 secs |
| Snow | 0.5 secs* | 0.1 secs | 0.05 secs | 0.05 secs | 0.05 secs | 0.05 secs |
Shovels are not effective at destroying Soul Sand.