Tutorial:Diamonds

Diamonds are one of the most sought-after items in Minecraft, due to their use in crafting diamond and netherite tools, Smithing templates, weapons, and armor. Diamonds are also one of the rarest ores in Minecraft along with emeralds, lapis lazuli, and ancient debris. This makes diamonds extremely difficult to find and severely limits a player's supply of diamonds. This tutorial is intended to help players who want to obtain, maintain, and expand their diamond supply.

Diamonds can be obtained from diamond ore, a rare find found in about ~0.0846% (~1 in 1200) of blocks in levels 5-16. Diamonds can be found anywhere beneath layer 16, but is most common in layers 5-12 in version 1.17.1 and below; in versions 1.18 and later they are expected to be most common between layers -50 to -64. Most players find it through caving or mining. Most advice seems to suggest using starting at -58 for 1.18 or later and 11 for earlier versions as your starting point.

The player needs an iron, diamond, or netherite pickaxe to mine diamonds (and any gold, emerald, or redstone they find, as well). Although it may be tempting to use stone tools for digging to save the durability of iron tools, remember that diamond ore does not drop diamonds when mined with a wood, stone, copper, or gold pickaxe. Use an iron pickaxe (or better) at these low levels for anything that looks unusual. A pickaxe with the Fortune enchantment increases the average number of diamonds obtained depending on the level, with Fortune III pickaxe harvesting an average of 2.2 (maximum 4) diamonds per ore.