How does a hopper work in Minecraft?

A hopper is an item in Minecraft that acts as a container and can automatically transfer items in or out of itself to another location in the world. This makes the hopper an incredibly versatile device, capable of moving items between inventory chests, minecarts, and other devices such as droppers and dispensers. But how exactly do hoppers work?

A hopper is great for moving items in Minecraft (Image via Mojang Studios || HTG George/YouTube)

A Minecraft Hopper is an item that can be crafted by players by placing five iron ingots and a chest in any regular crafting table. They must be placed on top of something like an open chest or furnace. When placed, it will allow you to fill one inventory slot and then hop over to another inventory, such as a chest or furnace.

---

A guide for how a hopper works in Minecraft

Hoppers are also useful for creating automatic farms and mob grinders because they can pass items from one place to another quickly, easily, and endlessly. It works best when paired with minecart rails, so players don't have to carry things around manually.

The Item Hopper is a block used to move items from one inventory space to another. To see how it works, let’s imagine you have three chest inventories. Players can set up an Item Hopper by placing it directly above one of their chests. Now that they have an item hopper on top of a chest, they can place an empty inventory item such as glass or clay below it and redstone dust nearby.

This way, whenever the player triggers redstone dust via lever or any other method, whatever is placed inside the item hopper will be thrown into whatever is below it (in this case, glass or clay). Here is how they can be applied to a build.

---

Hoppers and redstone usage

Hoppers are one of Minecraft’s most widely used redstone components. They are used to pick up items, liquids and blocks and to move them around. Like many other parts of redstone circuits, hoppers operate on a power level system of 0 when empty and 15 when completely full.

Hoppers do not do anything themselves when fully powered, but their power level can be read so that players can tell when they are full. They fill up when having multiple items placed inside them, which they can then output to a chest or other storage device. In order for an item to be picked up by a hopper it must have at least one horizontal block space above it.

---

Hoppers as a container in Minecraft

Players can also use hoppers as containers for storing items. However, unlike chests, they can't be opened or closed individually. Therefore, if the player needs to access some of their stored items, they must place a chest next to the hopper and link it up with their chest. The chest acts as an interface for retrieving those stored items. However, placing and taking from storage limits how fast it works.

More about: Crafting