Highlights

• The pickaxe in Minecraft is an iconic tool that players will use the most often, and it's best crafted with diamonds and upgraded into a Netherite pickaxe for optimal performance.
• Enchanting pickaxes in Minecraft can be tough for new players or those unfamiliar with enchantments, so it's important to know the best enchantments for pickaxes.
• Silk Touch, Unbreaking, Efficiency, Fortune, and Mending are some of the key enchantments that can greatly enhance the performance and durability of pickaxes in Minecraft.

The pickaxe in Minecraft is the player's most trusty tool and most likely the one tool they will be using most often. It's the iconic item of the sandbox survival and building game, which is best crafted with diamonds and upgraded into a Netherite pickaxe for the best performance.

Pickaxes can also be enchanted, similarly to all the other tools in Minecraft. However, the choice of enchantment might be tough or confusing for players who are either new to Minecraft or who haven't dabbled much with enchantments just yet. Here are the best pickaxe enchantments in Minecraft.

Updated on March 4, 2024, by Jake Fillery: Players can use 6 enchantments on a pickaxe in Minecraft, but not all of them are effective. Some enchantments can be a trap, and others, underwhelming. There is great knowledge in discovering the powers bestowed upon the discovery of the best pickaxe enchantments. Players will be able to mine faster for longer periods of time, and even obtain greater rewards. With this article, players will be able to find the best enchantments for pickaxes, and just what they should avoid in the future when they want to obtain the very best out of their resources. Useful information is bound below, allowing players to better understand Minecraft pickaxe enchantments so that they don't waste XP and a valued pickaxe in the process.

How To Enchant With Books

Some enchantments may require the player to use books. This may come from the fact that the pickaxe they want to enchant is already enchanted or because some enchantments like Efficiency require the combination of two Efficiency 4 books to make Efficiency 5. Either way, enchanting with books is a great way to get the best pickaxe enchantments in Minecraft.

Minecraft’s best pickaxe enchantments will require a lot of patience and a lot of sugar cane. Players can use this sugar cane to create paper and then combine 3 paper with 1 leather to create a book. With this book, players can use the enchantment table as normal and hope that they get an appropriate enchantment on the book.

With an enchanted book, players can use an Anvil, which is crafted with 3 Iron Blocks and 4 Iron Ingots. Interacting with the Anvil will let players combine their pickaxes with their enchanted book to merge them into one powerful pickaxe.

The Best Pickaxe To Enchant

Not everyone can pick up the best pickaxe in Minecraft and expect to run away with countless diamonds. However, players should be cautious, especially early into their Minecraft world, not to waste their levels. Players will need an iron pickaxe, at least, in order to mine for Diamonds to create an enchantment table so that they can engage with the best enchantments for a pickaxe.

It’s always a good start to create an iron pickaxe in search of those diamond ores. Yet, considering players will need a diamond pickaxe in order to create an enchantment table, it’s probably best that they use their levels to enchant the diamond pickaxe they used to gather obsidian, as to craft the enchantment table, they will need 1 book, 2 diamonds, and 3 obsidian.

There are really only 2 pickaxes to consider, the Diamond Pickaxe and the Netherite Pickaxe. However, players should definitely enchant the Diamond Pickaxe, as it is the most efficient way of mining, and they won’t be able to even obtain a Netherite Pickaxe without the use of a Diamond Pickaxe.

6 Curse of Vanishing

Causes The Item To Disappear Rather Than Drop When The Wielder Dies

The worst enchantment for a pickaxe, and one to definitely look out for, is Curse of Vanishing. This enchantment will cause the item to disappear if the player who currently has it within their inventory dies. Players can acquire Curse of Vanishing not through their own enchantments, but through looting treasure found in the End City, Jungle Temples, Strongolds, Ruined Portals, or through fishing and raid drops.

Curse of Vanishing truly is a curse, so if players manage to get one, it's best not to use it to invest in enchanting more powerful verses onto said pickaxe, as it will be all for nothing if the player dies with it equipped. However, if players like the risk and want to treat it as a permadeath attribute, then feel free to seek one out, as Curse of Vanishing cannot be removed.

5 Silk Touch

Pick Up Blocks Rather Than Their Materials

• Incompatible with Fortune
• Use Enchantment Table to Acquire

This enchantment is more of a niche pick for players but is a must-have for players who want to mine out blocks and objects without breaking them. In Minecraft, there are many objects that will simply vanish when broken with a regular pickaxe, and Silk Touch essentially prevents that.

Silk Touch allows players to mine out any block in its current form. This means they can safely mine glass blocks with a pickaxe, coral blocks without killing them, and even grass blocks. For builders, in particular, Silk Touch is a vital tool, as players won't be wasting blocks by breaking them and losing them in the process if they're building something big and challenging.

Silk Touch only comes in one iteration of itself. It has no levels, unlike some other enchantments in the game, though it does require players to have 30 levels before they can unlock the enchantment randomly from the level 3 enchantment slot at the enchanting table.

4 Unbreaking

Avoid Durability Reduction

• Maximum level: 3
• Use Enchantment Table
• Found With Fishing
• Random Spawn In Dungeon Chests
• Trade with Librarian Villager

Everyone has had a pickaxe break on them once or twice, whether that’s from the deeply therapeutic act of mining for too long or otherwise. There’s nothing more frustrating than a pickaxe breaking, forcing the player to make a new one with the materials they have at hand, so they are not trapped deep in a cave with no way out. However, there’s an enchantment that could make that worry go away.

With the Unbreaking enchantment, players will have the random chance that their pickaxe will not use any durability when they break a block. Unbreaking will also increase the efficiency of the pickaxe’s durability, meaning that it will be able to withstand far more damage than other pickaxes.

Unbreaking has a maximum rank of 3 and can be acquired by using an enchantment table. In rarer instances, it can be found through fishing, enchantment books, and trading with librarian villagers. Unbreaking 3 is certainly the enchantment players will want, as it will maximize the efficiency of their strip mine or other adventures.

3 Efficiency

Increase Mining Speed

• Efficiency 5 is accessed by combining 2 Efficiency 4 books at an anvil
• Efficiency 5 can be found in End City and Bastion Remnant chests

Any Minecraft player knows that the most time-consuming task in the game is mining for resources. With a simple iron pickaxe, the task of finding diamonds can take a long time, especially following the world generation changes introduced in Minecraft's 1.18 update. Now, diamond is most commonly found deep underground, where the tough deepslate is most prevalent. This material takes a while to mine with a regular pickaxe.

That's why Efficiency is such a great enchantment to choose for a pickaxe. Players will now gain the ability to mine out blocks at a faster rate with their enchanted pickaxe. Players who are concerned with strip mining and gathering resources will definitely want to invest in this enchantment above all, and it's a great one to pair with other enchantments, too.

Efficiency comes in five levels. However, Efficiency V can only be achieved when players put two Efficiency IV enchanted books together on an anvil. In order to unlock Efficiency IV naturally, players will need to have 30 levels before the enchantment has a chance of appearing at the enchanting table's level 3 slot.

2 Fortune

Increases Number / Chance Of Specific Item Drops

• Incompatible with Silk Touch
• Maximum Level: 3

Speaking of mining diamonds, the Fortune enchantment is a Minecraft player's best friend when it comes to getting more resources for less effort. Fortune allows players to basically mine out any ore block, which will then drop an increased amount of said resource. This means that potentially, a single diamond ore block could yield up to 4 diamonds instead of the default one. That's a massive increase in gains.

Of course, even with Fortune, there's a degree of RNG involved in this. 4 drops aren't guaranteed, but the maximum drop grows higher the stronger the player's Fortune enchantment is. This enchantment is one of the most desired ones, and for good reason, as getting it early will guarantee the player will become rich quickly.

Fortune has three levels, each increasing the gains players can make while mining with each level. Fortune III is what players will want to get as soon as possible, and it's the enchantment that gives them the chance of earning four ore pieces when mining out an ore block. Make sure to have 30 levels of XP before looking for it at the enchantment table's level 3 slot.

1 Mending

Restore Durability With Experience Points

• Incompatible With Infinity
• Treasure Chest Enchantment
• Trade With Librarian Villager

Fortune and Mending are both excellent enchantments, but Mending has a slight edge over Fortune due to its ability to increase the lifespan of any tool in Minecraft. The idea of a pickaxe that never breaks is a dream come true, especially if players have managed to get one with a lot of great enchantments and don't wish to lose it.

Mending is the enchantment that will preserve pickaxes. When applied to any tool, earning XP will automatically fill its durability bar with a bit of durability. This means that as long as players are earning XP, they can keep their tools with Mending enchantments forever.

There is a small catch, though: Mending isn't an enchantment that players can earn through the enchanting table. It's one of the enchantments in the game that players must instead find in the world, either by trading with a villager or by finding it in the form of an enchanted book in a loot chest.