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. Since 12w06a there is a rare chance that Zombies drop an iron shovel.
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, Soul Sand, Mycelium, 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 without a shovel. Green cells indicate the fastest tool type. The best type of shovel is, without a doubt, the diamond shovel because of its quick block destruction and high durability. However, diamonds are hard to find in the beginning so the best alternative is an iron shovel. Iron is easy to find and can be mined with a stone pickaxe.
| Shovels | Nothing | Wood | Stone | Iron | Diamond | Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durability | ∞ | 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 |
| Mycelium | 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 |
| Soul 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 |