Minecraft: Here’s How To Give Pre-Existing Filled Maps To Other Players
Maps in Minecraft are life savers when trying to find your way back to your base or a spot you found lovely but got carried away exploring further. You can mark them, make them bigger, and they’re a huge time saver, but how do you give other players maps that are already filled out in Minecraft?
Empty locator maps vs. empty maps
Minecraft has two types of maps: empty locator maps and empty maps. Empty locator maps are made with a compass, whereas empty maps aren’t. Due to the addition of a compass, locator maps show where a player is located on the map.
If the player exits the radius, the map covers, the dot that implies their location does not disappear but rather sits on the edges in the general direction of their location. This does not last forever, though. After a certain point, it’ll disappear completely.
Why is this distinction important? Well, that depends on your goal with the map you’ll give out. If you want players to try to find the area the map indicates on their own, you might want to lose the location marker. I suggest making a locator map if you’d like them to find the area easily.
Quick note, empty maps that don’t show a player’s location but are still usable only exist in Bedrock Edition Minecraft. You can still make an empty map in Java Edition but can’t use it.
Making all players visible on a map
If you’d like players to better manage their way in a new Minecraft world, you can also make every player’s location visible on the map. For this to work, you’ll have to make a copy of a map for each player and have them open it.
To make a copy of a map, you’ll first want to make a locator map. You can do this on the crafting table by placing eight pieces of paper on the edges of the crafting grid and then placing a compass in the center.
Then, go into the cartography table and place that map in the top slot. Then, you’ll want to place an empty map on the bottom slot. You’ll end up with two exactly the same maps. Repeat this process until you get to the number of maps you want. You’ll then give out the maps to other players, they’ll open them, and everyone should be able to see themselves and other players on the map.
Giving players pre-existing filled maps using commands
The easiest way of giving out players pre-existing and filled maps is by using commands. Of course, this does mean that you need to have cheats enabled. Let’s look at the command and then explain what you need to fill out in every section of the command.
/give [player name] Minecraft:filled_map [amount] [map ID]
The give command is used to give players a bunch of stuff, not just maps. You can give players enchanted items with weird boosts not otherwise available in the game and much more. The player name is pretty self-explanatory, but you can also use the all-players tag to give the map to all the players at the same time by replacing the player name section with @a. Minecraft:filled map is used to identify what exactly you want to give the player; the amount tells how many maps, and the map ID will specify which map.
Every map that’s made in Minecraft has a different ID. That’s because maps in Minecraft are made in predetermined chunks. To find the map ID, you’ll have to make a map and look for its ID by hovering over it while you’re in your inventory.
This means that no matter how you do it, you have to make at least one map and fill it out to give out to other players.
Map sizes
There’s a total of 6 map sizes in Minecraft. To increase map size, you’ll want to head into the cartography table and place a paper on the bottom and the map on the top. Let’s see how big these maps are:
- 127×127 map – covers an area of 16,129 blocks
- 256×256 map – covers an area of 65,536 blocks
- 512×512 map – 262,144
- 1024×1024 map – 1,048,576
- 2048×2048 map – 4,194,304
If you choose to go with the largest option, it’ll take some time before you fill out the entirety of the map, so make sure you have access to a creative mode or perhaps an elytra on hand.
This does not mean that you’ll have to walk through every block to fill out the area but still, be prepared to invest some time in doing this.
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