Overview
A Golden Shovel digs faster than a netherite one and lasts 32 blocks, which is exactly long enough to be frustrating. Its mining multiplier of 12 is the highest of any material, so with Efficiency V and a Haste beacon a golden shovel removes sand and gravel as fast as you can walk through it — briefly. As with every gold tool, the actual reason to make one is enchantability: at 22 it rolls better enchantments than anything else at a level-30 table, so players farming for Efficiency V or Fortune III books enchant gold tools and extract the result rather than fighting the odds on diamond. There is one charming edge case worth knowing: gold tools take enchantments so readily that a golden shovel is the cheapest way to test what a bookshelf configuration produces before committing a diamond item to it. Beyond that, the ingots do more good bartered to piglins, and the shovel does more good as a curiosity in a display frame than as a working tool. Treat it as a laboratory instrument rather than as equipment and it suddenly makes sense.
Cheap high-level enchantment rolls to extract onto books, and short bursts of the fastest digging speed available to any material. Not equipment so much as an enchanting experiment.
Golden Shovel is one of the 6 variants of this shape in the game. What changes between them is the material, and with it the hardness, the drops, the durability and the recipe — so every figure on this page is this variant's own. Stone Shovel is the same shape in a different material.
Golden Shovel is a tool item in Minecraft 1.21.4. It has 32 points of durability. Use Gold Ingot on an anvil to repair it.
Enchanting it is possible and generally recommended. It does not stack — each one takes its own slot. You make it with Gold Ingot and Stick.
The one thing it makes is Gold Nugget.
About the golden tool set
How to get it
Craft 1 from 1 Gold Ingot and 2 Sticks. With 32 uses it is the shortest-lived tool in the game, and gold's enchantability of 22 is the highest.
Tips
- Test a bookshelf setup with a golden shovel before enchanting a diamond tool; the roll quality tells you what you need.
- 32 uses is under half a stack of sand, so never rely on one for anything you have to finish.
- Gold nuggets from bartering pile up fast; a single trip's ingots make more shovels than you will ever need.
- Use a grindstone to strip the enchantment back into experience if the roll is not what you wanted.
Damage and attack speed
Golden Shovel deals 2.5 damage per hit and swings 1 times a second, which works out at 2.5 damage per second when every swing is fully charged.
A swing that lands before the cooldown bar refills deals a fraction of that, so waiting for the bar is worth more than clicking faster.
That is 8 hits to kill a zombie or a creeper, the same for a skeleton, and 7 hits for a spider.
Properties
Golden Shovel lasts 32 uses before it breaks, and Gold Ingot repairs it on an anvil. Two worn copies can also be merged, on an anvil or a grindstone. Unbreaking III roughly quadruples the lifespan, and Mending replaces the repair cost with experience. Its enchantability of 22 decides how good the enchanting table's offers are: the higher the number, the more often a level-30 table offers the top-tier enchantment rather than a weak one. Golden Shovel does not stack — each one occupies an inventory slot of its own.
- Damage per second
- 2.5
- Enchantability
- 22
- Repaired with
- Gold Ingot
- Category
- Tools
How it compares to the rest of the set
Every tier of shovel in the game, side by side, so the trade-off is visible in one place: Golden Shovel sits 4 of 6.
Gold is the outlier: it enchants better than anything else (enchantability 22) and breaks almost immediately, which is why gold gear is enchanted and then upgraded rather than used.
| Item | Durability | Attack damage | Attack speed | Enchantability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wooden Shovel | 59 | 2.5 | 1 | 15 |
| Stone Shovel | 131 | 3.5 | 1 | 5 |
| Iron Shovel | 250 | 4.5 | 1 | 14 |
| Golden Shovel | 32 | 2.5 | 1 | 22 |
| Diamond Shovel | 1,561 | 5.5 | 1 | 10 |
| Netherite Shovel | 2,031 | 6.5 | 1 | 15 |
Crafting recipe
Crafting Table
Golden Shovel
Used to craft
Golden Shovel is an ingredient in 1 recipes, producing Gold Nugget.
Enchantments it can take
5 enchantments can be applied to Golden Shovel: Efficiency, Fortune, Mending, Silk Touch, and Unbreaking.
Mending is a treasure enchantment and never appears at an enchanting table — they come from loot chests, fishing or villager trades only.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Golden Shovel in Minecraft?
Golden Shovel is crafted from Gold Ingot and Stick.
What is the stack size of Golden Shovel?
Golden Shovel does not stack at all. Every one you carry takes an inventory slot of its own, which is the practical limit on how many you take on a trip.
How much damage does Golden Shovel do?
2.5 damage per fully charged hit, at 1 attacks per second — 2.5 damage per second. Strength II adds 6 damage on top of that.
How much durability does Golden Shovel have?
Golden Shovel has 32 durability, and can be repaired on an anvil with Gold Ingot.
Can Golden Shovel be enchanted?
Yes — 5 enchantments apply to it, at an enchanting table with fifteen bookshelves, or from an enchanted book on an anvil. Mending is usually the one worth hunting for, because it removes the repair cost entirely.
The rest of the set
Golden Shovel is one of 6 variants of the same shape. The others are made from different materials, so their numbers differ:
