How to Make, Use & Dye a Minecraft Shulker Box

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Rethink your Minecraft storage with shulker boxes

Co-authored by Janice Tieperman

Last Updated: June 30, 2024 Fact Checked

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Shulker Box Recipe

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How to Find Shulker Shells

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Using a Shulker Box

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Dyeing a Shulker Box

Shulker boxes are a unique type of chest you can create once you reach the End dimension in your Minecraft game. Unlike traditional chests, which spit out all their items after being broken and moved, shulker boxes hold onto their items, making it easy to transport lots of objects at once. In this guide, we’ll show you the ropes so you can build, use, and dye your very own shulker box in-game.

Crafting a Shulker Box in Minecraft

Access a crafting table and place a shulker shell in the center slot of the top and bottom rows. Then, place an empty chest in the middle of the second row so it’s sandwiched vertically between the shulker shells. Move the completed shulker box to your inventory—it’s now ready to use!

Section 1 of 4:

Shulker Box Recipe

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Craft a shulker box using 2 shulker shells and an empty chest. Open up your crafting table and stick a shulker shell in the middle slots of the top and bottom rows. Then, place a chest in the center slot of the middle row (so it’s directly between the 2 shulker shells). Grab the completed shulker box from the right of the crafting table to your inventory bar.
- To make a chest, place a wood plank in every slot of a crafting table except for the central one.
- The completed shulker box will resemble a pink-purple block.

Section 2 of 4:

How to Find Shulker Shells

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Go to the End dimension via an end portal. End portals exist in all Minecraft worlds, and can be found with the help of Eyes of Ender. The End portal requires 12 Eyes of Ender to be activated, and typically spawns with just a few Eyes of Ender installed. Finish building the portal to be transported to the End dimension.
- Eyes of Ender can be made with ender pearls, which are collected by fighting endermen, and blaze powder, which is created from the blaze rods dropped by fighting blazes.
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Find shulkers in the end cities along the outskirts of the End. Shulkers are purple, clam-like mobs that spawn in end cities, which are purple- and cream-colored castles that pop up on the islands around the edge of the End. They typically can be spotted on the walls, though they can also be found on end ships.^{[1]
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- The shulker might look like a purple box at first, but it’ll eventually open up and reveal itself for a moment.
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Fight and kill shulkers to collect shulker shells. Attack the shulker with your sword to deal damage—just keep in mind that it’ll take multiple hits to successfully take it down. As you battle the shulker, it will likely teleport away (within a semi-close range), so you’ll have to explore the nearby area to continue attacking it successfully.^{[2]
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- Shulkers shoot shulker bullets when attacked, which cause you to float, fall down, and take damage. If you have a shield equipped, you can intercept and block the bullet.
- Tip: Enchant your sword with Looting III to ensure that the shulker drops shulker shells upon its death.^{[3]
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Section 3 of 4:

Using a Shulker Box

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Place items in a shulker box like you would a chest. Shulker boxes are basically just fancier versions of a chest, so place whatever you’d like inside! Keep in mind that, like chests, shulker boxes are limited to 27 inventory slots, so you’ll need multiple shulker boxes if you’d like to store a lot of different items.
- Unlike chests, placing 2 shulker boxes next to one another won’t create a larger shulker box with more storage.
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Hit a shulker box with a pickaxe to pick it up and move it. Equip your pickaxe and hit the shulker box to break it and make it easy to pick up and add to your inventory. The items will stay in the shulker box rather than falling out.
- You don’t need Silk Touch to break down your shulker box.

Section 4 of 4:

Dyeing a Shulker Box

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Access your crafting table and place a shulker box in the leftmost slot of the center row. Then, place the dye color of your choice in the center slot to change your shulker box’s color.^{[4]
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