Minecraft: 5 most helpful console commands in 2022

Minecraft is a unique game. Having been in development for more than a decade, each system in the game can interact with each other in ways that the developers did not intend or could not have foreseen due to the sheer complexity of the game’s major systems.

This has ensured the community stays engaged with the game due to how much experimentation is possible.

One of the most interesting areas players can experiment with is the game’s console. There is a large selection of console commands that players can take advantage of, do things like give custom enchantments, edit the game’s rules, and change the weather.

Helpful Minecraft console commands to remember

5) /time

A witch hut in a swamp as seen through a sunrise, one of the presets of the time command (Image via Minecraft)

The time command allows players to manually change the in-game time. There are two different versions of the command, one that offers convenience and the other offering fine control.

/time set <day, night, noon, midnight>

This command version uses one of four different keywords to switch the in-game to a preset depending on the location of the sun and moon. The day will change the time to sunrise, noon will change the time to when the sun is in the middle of the sky, the night will change the time to sundown, and midnight will change the time to when the moon is at its highest.

The advantage of this command version is that players need not know exactly what in-game time is associated with each of these periods of the day.

/time set <time>

This command version allows players to input any time, jumping the world to the associated time. The player will need to know what in-game time refers to each period of a day.

4) /gamemode

One of the most important things for players on test worlds wanting to experiment with different redstone builds, or farm designs is the ability to switch between a creative mode for infinite resources, spectator mode to be able to look at things that have been built over, and survival so that mobs spawn in so that the farm can be tested.

There is, thankfully, a very simple command that players can use to switch between the game’s game modes. This command is the /gamemode command.

The syntax for this command is: /gamemode <creative, survival, spectator, adventure>

3) /weather

One area of Minecraft that can be incredibly frustrating: thunderstorms. They either happen at the most inopportune of moments or refuse to happen at all when the player wants one too. Combined with the fact that an ill-placed lighting strike can burn down wooden or woolen bases, the frustration level is bumped up to 11.

Thankfully, there is a command that players can use to manually set the weather to whatever is most convenient for them. This command is the /weather command. Players can set different weather conditions with this command: a regular rainstorm, a raging thunderstorm, or a clear sky.

The syntax for this command is: /weather <clear, rain, or thunder>

2) /gamerule

A phantom swooping down to attack a player (Image via Minecraft)

The /gamerule command might be the most powerful command within Minecraft. The /gamerule command allows players to change and edit their world’s toggleable commands, even changing commands that players cannot influence during the creation of the world.

Here are examples of some of the most common and useful gamerule commands:

To turn phantom spawning off/gamerule doInsomnia false

To stop creepers, ghasts, and enderman from destroying or moving blocks: /gamerule mobGriefing false

To turn on keep inventory: /gamerule keepInventory true

Turn off day-night cycle: /gamerule doDaylightCycle false

1) /locate

An end portal, which can quickly be found using the locate command (Image via Minecraft)

The /locate command is an incredibly powerful command, and gets the top spot on this list due to how useful it is for an average explorer. The /locate command allows players to search their world for the nearest of any biome, structure, or point of interest (PoI). Bedrock Edition is unable to search for PoIs.

This means that players in test or survival worlds can quickly find things like strongholds, ancient cities, mangrove swamps, deep dark biomes, or even smaller structures including ruined portals and bells. The command will output the coordinates into chats, which players can travel to manually, or click on to paste a teleport command straight into the chat window.

The syntax of the command is: /locate <structure, biome, or poi> <name of the thing to search for>