How to Make a Hopper in Minecraft
Home → Minecraft → How to Make a Hopper in Minecraft
Minecraft
How to Make a Hopper in Minecraft
Tips for Using Hoppers
Hoppers are one of the most used automation blocks in the game. A single hopper transfers 2.5 items per second into an adjacent container, so for high-volume farms you may need multiple hoppers in parallel to avoid bottlenecks. Keep a stack of iron ingots and a few chests on hand — once you start automating, you’ll find yourself placing hoppers everywhere.
FAQ
⚡ Quick Answer
How to Craft a Hopper
Open your crafting table and place 5 iron ingots in a V shape — one in each corner of the top row, one in each side of the middle row, and one in the center bottom — then place a chest in the very center. That gives you 1 hopper.
1
Gather 5 iron ingots and 1 chest. You need iron smelted from iron ore, and a chest crafted from 8 wooden planks. Each hopper costs exactly these materials.
2
Open your crafting table and fill the grid in a V shape with iron ingots: top-left, top-right, middle-left, middle-right, and bottom-center slots.
3
Place the chest in the center slot of the grid — the middle of the middle row. The result slot will show 1 hopper. Drag it to your inventory.
4
Place the hopper by right-clicking on the side or top of a container (chest, furnace, barrel). To aim the hopper’s output in a specific direction, sneak while placing it against the target block — the narrow end always faces the block it was placed on.
→
Point it at a chest: sneak and right-click the chest to connect the hopper directly to it. Items that fall into the hopper’s top will automatically transfer into the chest below or beside it.
→
Use with furnaces: a hopper on top of a furnace feeds raw materials in automatically, and a hopper on the side feeds fuel. Chain them for a fully automatic smelting line.
→
Mob farm collector: place a hopper under your mob farm kill chamber to automatically collect all drops into a chest — no more manually picking up loot.
→
Disable with redstone: a redstone signal going into a hopper locks it and stops item transfer. Useful for sorting systems where you need to pause flow on a timer or trigger.
→
Hopper minecart: combine a hopper with a minecart at a crafting table to make a hopper minecart — it collects items while moving along rails, great for large automatic farms.
How do I connect a hopper to a chest?
Sneak (hold Shift) and right-click directly on the chest while holding the hopper. The hopper will point its narrow end toward the chest and automatically transfer items into it.
Why is my hopper not working?
The most common causes are: a redstone signal is disabling it, the output container is full, or the hopper is pointing the wrong direction. Break and replace it while sneaking against the target block to fix the direction.
Can a hopper pick up items from the ground?
Yes — a hopper collects any items that land on top of it or that entities drop directly above it. This is why hoppers are placed under mob farm kill zones to collect all loot automatically.
How many items can a hopper hold?
A hopper has 5 inventory slots, each holding up to 64 items, for a maximum of 320 items. It transfers items at a rate of 2.5 items per second when not blocked by redstone.