Shulker Boxes: How to Get Them and Why They Change Everything
Portable chests that keep their contents when you break them. Here's how to find End cities, survive shulkers, and get your first two shells.
A shulker box is a chest you can carry inside your inventory, and it keeps everything inside when you break it. Getting your first pair is the single biggest quality-of-life jump in the game.
Why they matter
One shulker box holds 27 stacks and takes one inventory slot. Carry a few and a mining trip stops being limited by inventory space at all.
They also survive anything. Break a shulker box, it drops as an item with the contents intact. Nothing else in the game does this — which makes them the only safe way to move a base.
You cannot put a shulker box inside another shulker box, which is the one limit worth remembering.
Crafting one
Two shulker shells and one chest. That is it.
Shulker shells only drop from shulkers, and shulkers only live in End cities. So the whole task is really "get to an End city and survive it".
Getting to the End cities
End cities are in the outer End islands, past the main island. You cannot reach them until you have beaten the dragon.
- 1.Defeat the ender dragon. Our guide covers the fight.
- 2.Find the End gateway. A small portal appears near the edge of the main island after the dragon dies.
- 3.Throw an ender pearl into it. The gateway teleports you about 1,000 blocks out to the outer islands.
- 4.Explore. End cities are scattered and it can take a while. Fly if you can, bridge if you must.
Bring blocks. The void between End islands is unforgiving and a bridge is the difference between exploration and a very long walk back.
Fighting shulkers
Shulkers are stationary boxes stuck to walls and floors. They open, fire a homing projectile, and close.
The projectile applies Levitation, which floats you upward for about ten seconds and then drops you. In a city built over the void, that is how people die.
How to handle them:
- Fight from a position where floating up is survivable. Never fight one while standing on a narrow ledge over the void.
- Block the projectile with a shield. It works, and it is the most reliable answer.
- Drink milk to clear Levitation immediately if you get hit.
- Kill them with a bow from range where you can, so you never take the hit.
- Look up. Shulkers hide on ceilings and the underside of ledges.
Shulker shells drop reasonably often, and each shulker can only drop one. You need two shells per box, so plan on killing at least four or five for your first couple of boxes.
The End ship
Every End city has a chance of having a floating ship next to it, and the ship is the prize:
- An elytra in an item frame at the back — see how to get an elytra.
- A dragon head on the prow.
- Two chests with some of the best loot in the game, including diamond gear and enchanted books.
- Brewing stands with potions.
If you find a city without a ship, keep looking. Ships are common enough that a few cities will turn one up.
Colouring and using them
Dye a shulker box any of the 16 colours by crafting it with dye. You can re-dye it later, and the contents survive.
Colour-coding is the practical reason to bother: a blue box for ores, a green one for building blocks, a red one for combat gear. It turns a wall of identical chests into something you can read at a glance.
Once you have a few, the obvious uses:
- Mining trips — take two empty ones, fill them, come home.
- Base moves — pack everything, break the boxes, walk away.
- Building kits — one box permanently loaded with your usual palette.
- Nether hauling — see nether travel and coordinates for moving materials efficiently.
Are they farmable?
Shulkers can multiply — a shulker's projectile occasionally spawns a new shulker — and dedicated shulker farms exist that exploit this. They are fiddly, version-sensitive builds, well outside beginner territory. For most players, a couple of trips to End cities produces all the boxes you will ever need.