Hopper

A hopper is a low-capacity storage block that can be used to collect item entities directly above it, as well as to transfer items into and out of other containers. A hopper can be locked with redstone power to stop it from moving items into or out of itself.

Breaking

A hopper drops itself and its contents if mined with a pickaxe. Using any other item to mine a hopper drops only its contents.

Crafting

A hopper can be crafted from a chest and 5 iron ingots.

Natural generation

Hoppers generate above barrels in the trial chambers.

Usage

A hopper can be used as a container, as a crafting ingredient, and as a redstone component. A hopper has an "output" tube at its bottom that can face down or sideways and provides a visual indication of which block the hopper is set up to drop its items into, if that block has an inventory. To place a hopper, use the control while aiming at the surface to which its output should face (Hoppers do not orient themselves automatically). To place a hopper directly on the face of an already interactable block, the player can while placing the hopper. Attempting to place a hopper aimed on the bottom face of a block instead faces downward. With some blocks, such as the furnace and brewing stand, the hopper has multiple uses. A hopper does not change direction after placement, and it is not attached to the container it faces; the container can be removed or replaced, and the hopper remains unchanged. , hoppers cannot be moved by pistons. Despite not having a full top surface, a few redstone components that require a support can be placed on top of hoppers (but not on their sides).

Redstone component

While a hopper is neither powered by a redstone signal nor in cooldown, it operates with three functions: Push a single item from its own inventory into a container it faces Pull a single item into its inventory from a container above it Collect item entities (free-floating items in the world) into its inventory from the space above it A hopper first attempts to push any items inside it. Afterward, it checks if the block above it is a type of container. If so, it attempts to pull from it. Otherwise, the hopper attempts to collect item entities. Notably, hoppers can push to and pull from other hoppers, forming hopper pipes or hopper chains, which allow transporting items across several blocks and are further discussed below.

Redstone signals

When a hopper receives a redstone signal, all three of its functions stop: in this situation the hopper is locked/disabled. Once the hopper loses power, its activity resumes as it goes back to being unlocked/enabled. Depowering a locked hopper does not affect its cooldown time. Therefore, unlocking a hopper that was not already in cooldown results in it starting to pull, push, or collect items as soon as it gets ticked. , the hoppers can only be locked on the input/consume redstone tick (C-tick). While a locked hopper does not push or pull/collect items, it may still receive items from droppers, crafters and other hoppers, and may have its items pulled out by another hopper beneath it. Hence, the item flow in a horizontal hopper pipe may be stopped by locking just one of the hoppers, but stopping a vertical hopper pipe requires locking two adjacent hoppers at the same time, such that both the pushing of the top one and the pulling of the bottom one are stopped. A hopper does not output any redstone signals by itself, but its fullness can be read using a redstone comparator, which needs to be placed next to it and facing away from it. An empty hopper outputs a signal strength of 0 and a completely full hopper outputs a signal strength of 15. Notably, a single stackable item (16 or 64) outputs a signal strength of 1 and a single non-stackable item outputs a signal strength of 3. A table with all signal strengths can be found in the comparator article. , if the hopper being read is part of a horizontal hopper pipe, the comparator can individually read each item passing through the chain, because items are pushed through the hoppers one by one at a speed that is manageable by the comparator. If there is an uninterrupted stream of items, the comparator does not switch off in between items. On the other hand, in a vertical hopper pipe, some of the hoppers may never produce a reading above 0, even with a continuous stream of items, because pushes and pulls both occur in the same game tick: The hoppers' items get pulled out a single game tick after they're pushed in and this isn't measurable by a comparator, because comparators need measurements lasting at least 2 game ticks (0.1 seconds, barring lag) to produce a reading.