What does a trapped chest do in Minecraft

In Minecraft, players are able to both obtain and craft something known as trapped chests. Trapped chests were officially added in Minecraft 1.5 and have been updated throughout the years.

Trapped chests might not appear to be very popular, meaning lots of players might not be aware of their existence. In multiplayer worlds, trapped chests can be very useful to prank other players who attempt to loot other people’s bases.

Below is everything players need to know about trapped chests, including breaking them, natural generations and what they do!


Trapped Chests in Minecraft

Where can you find trapped chests?

Image via Minecraft Seed HQ
Image via Minecraft Seed HQ

Trapped chests can only be found in “fake end portal rooms” within woodland mansions. Woodland mansions are massive structures found in dark forests, often pretty far away from the world’s spawn point. If Minecraft players wish to seek out a woodland mansion, they can do so by using a woodland explorer map, which can be obtained from cartographer villagers.

Trapped chests can be crafted by placing a regular chest and a tripwire hook on a crafting table!

Breaking and obtaining trapped chests

Image via Reddit
Image via Reddit

Luckily, trapped chests can be broken with any tool, although axes seem to be the fastest. If there are items in the chest, they will be dropped upon breaking the chest. If the Minecraft player is breaking a large trapped chest, and they break half of it, the items on that half of the chest will drop, but the other side of the chest will still function as a small trapped chest.

What do trapped chests do?

Image via Minecraft
Image via Minecraft

Trapped chests can be used as containers and as redstone components. A trapped chest is inactive while not being accessed, but is activated when accessed by a player. When the chest goes active, it can:

  • power any redstone dust as long as it’s around the chest, including undergrand, to a power level equal to the number of players accessing the trapped chest (with a maximum of 15)
  • activates any close mechanism components, whether it be to the sides, above or below the chest, such as pistons, redstone lamps, etc.

Trapped chests can activate buried TNT, which ultimately destroys themselves, any items within them and any mobs or players near them. The only set back to this, however, is that the chest needs to be opened twice for the TNT to be activated.

When placing two adjacent trapped chests side-by-side, it will combine the two chests, creating a double trapped chest. To avoid this, players in Java Edition can sneak while placing a second trapped chest, or place the second trapped chest facing a different direction.


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