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The Nether is an integral part of Minecraft, containing its own mobs, vegetation, structures, and rare treasures. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the different ways to build and activate a Nether Portal so that you can experience it for yourself.
How to build a Nether Portal frame in Minecraft
When it comes to creating a Nether Portal in Minecraft, the first thing you need to do is build the portal’s Obsidian frame. There are a few ways that this can be done—you can mine Obsidian and build the frame from scratch, complete a ruined portal, or use the lava bucket method. I’ll walk you through each of these methods and all of the materials they require.
Building the Nether Portal with mined Obsidian
To build the frame from scratch, you’ll first need a Diamond Pickaxe. You’ll need to venture deep underground to find and mine at least three diamonds, combining them with two sticks in a crafting table to create a Diamond Pickaxe. Fill the top row with the diamonds, then place one stick in the center box of the middle row and the other stick in the center box of the bottom row.
Next, you’ll want a bucket to carry water in. A bucket is crafted using three iron ingots. On a crafting table, place one iron ingot in the first box of the middle row and one in the third box of the middle row. Place the final ingot in the center box of the bottom row to craft the bucket! From there, you’ll want to interact with a water source while holding it to fill the bucket with water.
After gathering these two tools, you’ll want to find a lake of lava. These can spawn in the Overworld, but can also be found more commonly between Y Level -50 and Y Level -60.
Place the water on the edge of the lake so that it flows over, turning multiple lava source blocks into Obsidian. You’ll need to gather a minimum of 10 Obsidian to make the frame, but 14 Obsidian is the ideal amount to gather.
Afterward, return to the surface and get building! The frame is a rectangle that is 4 blocks long and 5 blocks tall. You can skip the corners to save Obsidian if you only have 10.
Now your frame is complete!
Finding Obsidian and fixing a ruined portal
This method does not require tools of any type and is somewhat reliable on luck and good spawns. First, you’ll need to find a ruined portal.
If you’re lucky, the chest it contains will have enough Obsidian to complete the portal. If not, however, there is the chance for a nearby village to have a Blacksmith with a chest containing Obsidian. This is much rarer and potentially much more difficult than mining down and finding Diamonds to make your own Obsidian.
If luck permits and you find all that you need, this is an extremely fast and easy way to get to the Nether at the beginning of your game.
If you did not find a chest containing Obsidian and don’t have diamonds, the best thing to do would be to complete the portal using the lava bucket method.
Lava bucket method
While this method is easier to complete than the previous one, it is more technically challenging. You will need a minimum of two buckets for this method. One will be filled with lava and the other with water.
Hold both buckets in your inventory slot. With the lava bucket in your hand, interact with the spot where you need the block of Obsidian to be for the portal to place the lava there.
After placing the lava, quickly select the water bucket and place the water next to the lava to turn it into Obsidian.
You will need to use a block like dirt to help place the water correctly, but you can build the entire portal in this way. However, this method is easiest if you just need to fill in a few spots on a ruined portal but don’t have any Obsidian on hand.
Repeat this process until the Nether Portal frame is complete!
Activating a Nether Portal in Minecraft
In order to activate a Nether Portal, you need to light it with a source of fire. There are two main ways to do this. There are two additional ways it can be lit, but those are reliant on having visited the Nether already.
Using flint and steel
A flint and steel can be crafted by combining one flint and one iron ingot in a crafting grid. Place the iron ingot down, then place the flint anywhere in the grid.
All you have to do now is use the flint and steel on one of the Obsidian inside of the portal’s frame.
Igniting a flammable block
This method took me a couple of tries, but it’s worth a shot particularly if you used the bucket method to create the portal. I started out by placing wood planks around the portal to hold in the lava, then placed the lava on the portal itself.
As soon as the planks caught fire, I removed the lava. I ended up removing the plank that was on the Obsidian as well because it prevented the portal from activating. Afterward, I waited and placed a few more planks to keep the fire going, my patience paying off when the portal activated. It’s a longer method, but worth it if you have the materials on hand.
Changing Portal Locations
The Overworld and the Nether use the same coordinate system, but the Nether is 1/8 the size of the Overworld. This means that one block in the Nether is equivalent to traveling 8 blocks in the Overworld. This does not include the Y axis, which is the same across dimensions. Building a portal in either dimension will place a corresponding portal in the other world.
You can move your portal around the Nether a bit and still have it connected to the same portal you entered through in the Overworld and vice versa. If you want to create separate portals to use as a Nether Highway, there is a distance that needs to be maintained. In the Nether, two portals must be at least 128 blocks from each other in order to prevent linking. In the Overworld, this means that they must be 1,024 blocks away from each other.
Nether Portal Tips and Tricks
- If you need to light a Nether Portal while in the Nether, you can deflect an attack from a Ghast or Blaze towards the portal to light it.
- A Magma Charge is like a single-use flint and steel and can be used to activate a Nether Portal.
- The largest a Nether Portal Frame can be is 23 blocks by 23 blocks.
- If a Nether Portal is torn down or otherwise deactivated and a player dies within the Nether, a new portal is created in the Overworld.
- After a player leaves the Nether, that dimension is no longer loaded. This means that if you die in the Nether, you will have five minutes to find your items starting after you enter the Nether instead of five minutes from spawning.
Inspired to see more of the Nether? Check out our Best Minecraft Nether Seeds and other Minecraft guides here on .