4 best ways to find apples in Minecraft 1.19 update

The three kinds of apples in the game (Image via Minecraft)
The three kinds of apples in the game (Image via Minecraft)

Apples are an item of myth in the history of Minecraft. Before the Minecraft Wiki and the in-game crafting book, players had to rely on their own knowledge or the knowledge of others that had been shared online. In the early days of survival Minecraft, a player known as JTE included a crafting recipe for the golden apple in their guide as a joke.

After this, Notch added golden apples to the game, along with a crafting recipe that included normal apples, but normal apples were unobtainable at the time. It would not be until another year that apples were obtainable in survival (with beta 1.8), making golden apples craftable for the first time in the game’s history.

Golden apples are incredible items, normally more than enough to keep a player alive through the toughest fights the game has to offer, and this makes getting apples incredibly important. All the methods for getting apples currently in the game are detailed below.


Get apples in Minecraft 1.19 using leaf drops, loot, the bonus chest, and trading

4) Leaf drops

A dark oak forest, where players can get apples from leaves (Image via Minecraft)
A dark oak forest, where players can get apples from leaves (Image via Minecraft)

The most conventional way to get apples is by having them drop from leaf blocks. Both oak and dark oak leaves have a 1/200 or 0.5% chance of dropping an apple when they decay or are broken. Breaking leaves with a fortune enchanted tool increases the odds of an apple dropping.

Fortune One increases the odds up to 1/180 or 0.556%, Fortune Two increases the odds up to 1/160 or 0.625%, and Fortune Three increases the odds all the way up to 1/120 or 0.833%.

Outside of trading, this is the only way to get apples that is totally renewable, as players can just plant saplings to break leaves for more chances to drop apples. This renewability makes this a good method, but the low odds really hold it back as a technique to get apples consistently.


3) Loot

Apples found in a stronghold chest (Image via Minecraft)
Apples found in a stronghold chest (Image via Minecraft)

A more consistent way to get apples is by looting a few of the game’s different generated structures. For example, apples can be found in igloo chests in quantities between one and three, with a 70.4% chance of appearing.

Additionally, strongholds can contain two different chests: altar chests and storeroom chests, both of which can contain anywhere between one and three apples. The rates for altar chests are 33.2% on Java and 32.3% on Bedrock. The rates for storeroom chests are 47.5% on Java and 40% for Bedrock Edition.

This method of getting apples is great, as players are going to want to visit these structures anyway. Igloos are a great way to get potions and golden apples, strongholds are required to access the End dimension, and villages allow players to access villager trading, the single most powerful system in the entire game.


2) Bonus chest

The loot found in a bonus chest (Image via Minecraft)
The loot found in a bonus chest (Image via Minecraft)

The bonus chest is an option that players can select when creating a new world. This option spawns a chest surrounded by four torches near the player’s spawn point. This chest is typically filled with useful starting items, such as wooden tools, bread, saplings, wood, and occasionally apples.

The odds for the bonus chest to contain apples are different across the two different versions of the game. In the Java Edition of the game, the bonus chest has an 83.8% chance of containing either one or two apples. In the Bedrock Edition of the game, this chance is raised up to a 100% chance of the chest having one or two apples. This means Bedrock bonus chests are guaranteed to have at least one apple.

This method gets second place, as it is a guaranteed method for Bedrock players, but it is kept from the number one slot because it is not a repeatable method.


1) Trading

An example of farmer trades (Image via Minecraft)
An example of farmer trades (Image via Minecraft)

Villager trading almost needs no introduction. This system is the best in the game at allowing players to get powerful items and enchantments renewably, as players can trade for both enchanted diamond armor and enchanted books of mending.

One of the best professions for making emeralds is the farmer villager. This villager will typically buy carrots, potatoes, or some other basic crop in exchange for a decent number of emeralds. But the farmer villager, upon reaching the apprentice level of trades, has a chance to offer to sell the player four apples for a single emerald.

The odds of the farmer having this trade is 50% for the Bedrock Edition of the game and a slightly higher 66.7% chance for Java Edition players. This is easily the best method of getting apples, as players can trade for apples until the villager is out of stock and then simply do it again the next day.

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