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How to Get Silk Touch in Minecraft (1.21+)
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TL;DR
Silk Touch is a level 1 tool enchantment that makes certain blocks drop themselves instead of their usual items when mined. The most reliable ways to get Silk Touch are an enchantment table surrounded by 15 bookshelves, or trading for a Silk Touch enchanted book from a librarian villager (snowy librarians guarantee it at Expert level in worlds with the trade rebalance enabled). You can also find Silk Touch books in loot chests, fish them up with a fishing rod, or use commands on your Minecraft server for an instant Silk Touch pickaxe or shovel.
Enchantments in the Game
Enchantments in Minecraft Server Hosting are upgrades that change how your tools, weapons, and armor behave. A single good enchantment can turn an ordinary pickaxe into a late-game workhorse or make a shovel mine whole biomes in seconds. Among all the options, the Silk Touch enchantment stands out because it directly affects what blocks drop when you break them. In this guide we’ll focus on the Silk Touch enchantment: what it does, how to get Silk Touch in Minecraft, and which tools and blocks benefit from it the most.
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What is Silk Touch?
Silk Touch is a tool enchantment that makes certain blocks drop themselves instead of their normal drops. With a Silk Touch pickaxe you can mine diamond ore, deepslate variants, coal ore, or sculk blocks as full blocks rather than getting loose items, and you can pick up fragile blocks like glass, ice, grass blocks, mycelium, or even bee nests with bees still inside. This is perfect for builders who want to move rare terrain features into a base or store resources in compact block form.
By design, Silk Touch is a level 1 enchantment, so the maximum level is always Silk Touch I. It can be applied to pickaxes, shovels, axes, and hoes, but not to swords or fishing rods in normal gameplay. Silk Touch is incompatible with the Fortune enchantment, and it also cannot be combined with Looting or Luck of the Sea, even if you try to force them onto the same item. If you use commands to put both Silk Touch and Fortune on one tool, Silk Touch takes priority on blocks affected by both enchantments.
Once you start moving rare blocks with Silk Touch, organised storage becomes even more important. Our using hanging signs in Minecraft guide shows how to label chests, rooms and paths with clean, compact signs that match your builds.
How to Obtain Silk Touch
There are several ways to get Silk Touch in Minecraft, and they all feel a bit different in terms of effort and RNG. Below you’ll find the main methods: enchanting, villager trading, natural loot, fishing, and a quick option with commands or server permissions.
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Loot from Mobs and Chests
Silk Touch enchanted books can appear as loot in various structures and mob-related chests. Strongholds, mineshafts, dungeons (monster rooms), desert or jungle temples, and raid rewards all have a small chance to roll enchanted books, including Silk Touch. The odds are low, so this is more of a passive method: explore, clear structures, open every chest you see, and treat a Silk Touch book as a bonus reward rather than something you can farm on demand.
One of the fastest ways to secure a Silk Touch book is a good librarian setup. Our Minecraft villager trades 1.21 guide explains how to pick the right biomes, level librarians to Expert, and stack discounts so rare books stay affordable.
Fishing for Enchanted Books
Fishing is another way to get Silk Touch, since enchanted books are part of the treasure loot table. With a basic fishing rod the chance of any treasure is small, and Silk Touch is only one enchantment among many, so you should expect a long grind if you rely on this alone. Adding the Luck of the Sea enchantment to your fishing rod increases the overall treasure rate and makes Silk Touch books slightly more realistic to obtain, especially if you already have an AFK fishing setup.
Like all enchantments, Silk Touch has a small chance of appearing as loot during village raids or in chests found in dungeons. The odds are minimal, and finding a Silk Touch enchanted book this way is largely a matter of luck. This method is recommended if you’re not in a hurry to get Silk Touch and prefer to find it naturally through exploration and battles in the game.
Once you start collecting rare blocks with Silk Touch, a shared world full of detailed builds becomes very tempting. Use our best modded Minecraft server hosting or best Minecraft server hosting guides to choose a server that can handle big storage rooms, farms, and long-term projects.
Using an Enchantment Table
For most players the main way to get Silk Touch is the enchantment table. Craft it with 2 diamonds, 4 blocks of obsidian, and 1 book, then surround it with up to 15 bookshelves to unlock the highest-level enchantments. Silk Touch is technically a level 1 enchantment, but it can still appear in higher-level slots once your table is fully powered, so building the full 15-shelf setup is worth it.
A common strategy is to “roll” cheap items until Silk Touch shows up:
1. Craft a batch of inexpensive tools such as wooden shovels or basic books.
2. Place one item in the enchanting table with lapis and check the preview.
3. If you don’t see Silk Touch, pick the cheapest enchantment, or enchant a book to refresh the options.
4. Repeat until Silk Touch appears, then swap in the tool you actually want (usually a pickaxe or shovel) and take the enchantment.
Once you have a Silk Touch book, you can combine it with your tool on an anvil. If you roll books with bad enchantments along the way, use a grindstone to disenchant them and recover a bit of experience.
Trading with Villagers
Librarian villagers are one of the most consistent sources of Silk Touch books. Turn any unemployed villager into a librarian by placing a lectern nearby, then trade paper and books until they start offering enchanted books. In normal worlds (without the trade rebalance enabled) any librarian in any biome can eventually roll Silk Touch, usually at Expert level, and you can reroll their stock by breaking and replacing the lectern until you see the trade you want. Once you lock in a Silk Touch offer, keep that villager safe and use emeralds to buy multiple books for different tools.
Best Tools and Uses for Silk Touch
Most players start with a Silk Touch pickaxe, since it covers almost every important block affected by the enchantment. A Silk Touch shovel is handy for builders who move a lot of grass blocks, mycelium, or clay, while a Silk Touch axe is more of a niche choice for moving mushroom blocks or decorative logs without changing them. Whatever you choose, keep at least one regular Fortune pickaxe as well, so you can swap between collect the block and maximize drops depending on what you are mining.
Silk Touch shines when you want blocks in their original form. It lets you carry ore blocks like diamond ore or deepslate variants for later processing, move bee nests with bees still inside, gather glass and ice without wasting them, and relocate special blocks such as sculk, coral fans, and rare terrain like podzol or grass from one biome to another. You do lose the extra resources you’d get from the Fortune enchantment and the XP orbs from breaking ore, so it’s best to treat your Silk Touch tool as a precision instrument rather than your only pickaxe.
After Update 1.20.2
In Minecraft 1.20.2 and later there is an experimental Villager Trade Rebalance toggle. When this option is enabled while creating a world, librarian trades depend on the village biome. In snowy villages, a Master-level librarian always offers a Silk Touch I enchanted book as their special trade, which makes this the closest thing to a guaranteed way to get Silk Touch in survival. To use this method, you’ll need to:
1) Find or build a village in a snowy biome.
2) Turn a villager into a librarian with a lectern and level them up through trades.
3) Once they reach Expert/Master, buy the Silk Touch book trade and lock it in.
On multiplayer servers with an auction house or player shop system, you can sometimes skip the setup and simply buy a Silk Touch book or Silk Touch pickaxe from other players using emeralds, diamonds, or the local currency.
FAQ
What is the maximum Silk Touch level in Minecraft?
Silk Touch has only one level: Silk Touch I. It may appear in higher-level enchantment slots, but the effect is always the same.
Can you have Silk Touch and Fortune on the same tool?
In normal gameplay, you cannot combine Silk Touch and Fortune, and the game treats them as incompatible. If you force both using commands, Silk Touch overrides Fortune on blocks affected by both.
What tools can get Silk Touch?
You can apply Silk Touch to pickaxes, shovels, axes, and hoes; in survival it cannot be placed on swords or fishing rods. Many players keep one Silk Touch pickaxe and one Fortune pickaxe to cover both use cases.
What is the fastest way to get Silk Touch in Minecraft?
The quickest, reliable methods are an enchantment table with 15 bookshelves and a librarian villager. In worlds with the trade reb.
Conclusion
There are many ways to acquire the valuable Silk Touch enchantment. Whether through trading with villagers, using the enchantment table, fishing, or random discoveries, Silk Touch is a powerful tool that unlocks new creative possibilities and enhances resource management. We hope this article from GODLIKE Hosting has helped you understand how to obtain and make the most of Silk Touch in Minecraft. So go ahead and let your creativity shine, players!
