Here’s How To Repair & Disenchant Your Items in Minecraft

One of the most important aspects of Minecraft is collecting resources. As such, you need to make sure that your gear is always in the best possible shape, especially if you’re going on a longer expedition. Sometimes, accidents with planning happen, and you might find yourself mining far away from home with your only pickaxe breaking apart. This is why Minecraft introduced the repair mechanic; today we’ll see how it’s done.

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated in October 2023 and represents the most current state of the game.

There are several ways to approach item repair in Minecraft

Minecraft is a highly versatile game, meaning that you can approach fixing issues from several different angles depending on what is convenient for you. The same can be said for repairing. You can repair items in Minecraft in the following ways:

1. By using a grindstone.
2. By using a crafting grid.
3. By using an anvil.

Each specific approach to item repair has its pros and cons, and in the rest of this post, we’re going to show you how it’s done.

Repairing items via Grindstone

To repair items via grindstone, naturally, you need to find yourself or craft a grindstone. Grindstones can be found in villages quite often as they serve as weaponsmiths workstations or you can craft one yourself by combining 2x wooden planks and 2x sticks with 1x stone slab.

Now, once we’ve created the grindstone, we can set out to repair our items.

Repairing items by combining two items on a grindstone is the most common way. For example, if you have two used iron picks, you can combine them on a grindstone, which will result in one pickaxe having more health than any of the items you’ve placed on the grindstone. It’s fairly easy and straightforward but results in losing one time. The good news here is that you can always save up on inventory space by using this method.

Repairing items in the crafting grid

The option to repair items in the crafting grid is extremely useful, especially if you’re stuck somewhere where you don’t have access to grindstone, or the materials to create one. To repair items via the crafting grid, follow these steps.

1. Open inventory by pressing “E.”
2. Drag your broken items to the crafting grid. The pattern doesn’t matter.
3. The resulting item will be either repaired or have a slightly upgraded health bar.

Repairing items by using an anvil

The third approach to repairing items needs an anvil, and it’s by far the most complicated one, especially if you’re just starting out with the game. You can come across anvils in Woodland Mansions. Naturally, they are damaged, but it’s better than nothing. Alternatively, you can create your own anvil by combining 3x blocks of iron with 4x iron ingots.

Once you have an anvil, you can repair items via two approaches. You can repair them by combining two items of the same type, which will result in one repair item, or you can repair them by combining the broken item with a material that it was made of, which will result in one repaired item.

In any case, you will lose one item and gain one fixed item. When it comes to combining items with the material, it needs to be the corresponding material that the original item was made out of. To repair an iron pick, you need an iron ingot. To repair a diamond sword, you need diamonds, etc. The only exceptions to these rules are further shells, which are repaired with scuttle, and Elytra, which is repaired with phantom membrane.

How do you disenchant items in Minecraft?

Disenchanting items in Minecraft is fairly straightforward, and it’s done via grindstone. To disenchant an item simply place it in one of the slots in the grindstone, and the resulting item will be wiped out of all enchantments.

Can you repair items in Minecraft without disenchanting them?

It is possible to repair items without disenchanting them, and it’s done by combining the broken item with a material on an anvil.

Attempting to repair enchanted items on a grindstone will always result in the enchantment being lost, so the anvil method is the best if you want to preserve both the integrity of an item and the enchantment. Similarly, you can combine two items of the same type, which will result in a single item that has only one or both enchantments. But it has to be the item of the same type, meaning pick to pick, sword to sword, chest to chest; otherwise, nothing will happen. Transfering enchantments through this means in Minecraft is not possible.

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