Minecraft Stack Calculator
Table of contents
What is a stack of items in Minecraft?How to use the Minecraft stack calculatorWhat's the point of item stacks in Minecraft?How to drop a stack of items in MinecraftHow to split a stack in MinecraftHow to calculate stacks for Minecraft itemsHow to calculate Minecraft stacks? — A worked exampleFAQsWelcome to the Minecraft stack calculator! Whether you're just building a circle in Minecraft or a constructing a huge Nether portal, you're bound to work with more than 64 items at some point. Here, we'll show you how to calculate Minecraft stacks for a given number of items and how you can apply simple mathematics to solve the problem. We'll also teach you some handy in-game stack-related tricks, such as how to drop and how to split a stack in Minecraft.
What is a stack of items in Minecraft?
In everyone's favorite blocky sandbox game, the player's inventory has slots in which you can place items. Minecraft generally allows you to place up to 64 items of the same type into one slot. This pile of items is called a stack.
Note that we said "generally". While blocks and most items in the game stack up to 64 in one slot, there are a few exceptions. Some items only stack up to 16 in one slot; these include snowballs, eggs, and Ender Pearls (a vital ingredient for finding the End Portal). Tools and armor (or anything with in-game durability) do not stack at all, limiting the player to one item per slot.
How to use the Minecraft stack calculator
You can easily apply the items stacking concept for your daily usage with our Minecraft stack calculator:
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Decide which way you're calculating. Are you converting stacks to items or vice versa? Select the appropriate option at the top of the Minecraft stack calculator.
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If you're converting to stacks, tell the calculator how many items you have and the maximum stack size. It will determine how many stacks and how many leftover items you have.
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If you're converting to items, tell the calculator how many stacks and how many leftover items you have. It will determine how many items in total you have.
Try our pyramid block calculator to learn how to build your own pyramid in Minecraft!
What's the point of item stacks in Minecraft?
Stacks help you manage your inventory. It compacts similar items into one slot, freeing them up so that other items can fill them. It makes moving items easier — you can pick up an entire stack of items at a time and move them to or from your hotbar, your inventory, or your chests. There are also some neat in-game shortcuts for manipulating stacks, which we'll discuss below.
How to drop a stack of items in Minecraft
Whether you want to get rid of excess cobblestone on your mining trip ⛏, or you want to throw your diamonds 💎 into your hopper-powered sorting system, it's helpful to know how to drop a stack of items in your Minecraft world. It's really simple:
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Left-click once on the stack in your Minecraft player's inventory.
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Move your cursor outside the inventory's interface so that it hovers over the world in the background.
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Left-click again. This will drop the stack of items into the Minecraft world in front of you.
How to split a stack in Minecraft
Occasionally, you don't need an entire stack. In these scenarios, it would be great to know how to split a stack of Minecraft items. In your inventory, right-click a stack. Half will remain in your inventory and the other half will be dragged by your cursor, ready to be placed somewhere else. So, when you want to give only half of your carrots 🥕 to the villager in exchange for emeralds, right-click the carrot stack and move it to the villager's trading slot. The other half will be safe in your inventory.
How to calculate stacks for Minecraft items
We've hopefully convinced you of the importance of item stacks. But how do we determine how many stacks an arbitrary number of items will fill up? And how many items will remain in a semi-full stack? We can calculate these with some quick formulas.
First, determine whether the item's maximum stack size is 64 or 16. Most items stack to 64, but some only stack to 16.
Then, knowing the total number of items we have, continue with these two formulas:
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The number of full stacks (that is, the number of slots that will contain the maximum number of items) can be determined with
stacks = floor(total items / maximum stack size)
. Thefloor
operation means to round down to the nearest integer. -
The number of leftover items can be calculated with
leftover items = total items % maximum stack size
. Here,%
is the modulo operator — it means we use the remainder of the division betweentotal items
andmaximum stack size
.
We can also use these formulas backward. If we know how many stacks and leftover items we have, we can easily determine how many items we have in total with:
total items = stacks × maximum stack size + leftover items
.
How to calculate Minecraft stacks? — A worked example
Suppose we've designed a small automatic wheat farm that delivers a harvest of 250 wheat 🍞 items every hour. We need to devise a storage strategy, but we can't until we know how many stacks of wheat we'll be handling. Let's put what we've learned into practice.
In Minecraft, wheat stacks to 64. Knowing the maximum stack size to be 64, we can calculate that 250 wheat translates to:
floor(250/64) = floor(3.906) = 3 stacks
…and an additional semi-full stack of:
250 % 64 = 58
Our wheat farm would, therefore, produce 3 stacks and 58 units of wheat every hour.
Suppose the wheat farm runs for 10 hours and delivers the promised 2,500 wheat. That would mean our farm produced:
floor(2,500/64) = floor(39.06) = 39 stacks
…and a semi-full stack of:
2,500 % 64 = 4
To store all this wheat, we'd need 40 slots of inventory space — that means we'd need at least one double chest.
Lastly, let's suppose we're building a tower, and our online schematics tell us we'll need 5 stacks plus 32 pieces of cobblestone. How many pieces of cobblestone is that in total? We can easily use the backward equations: 5 stacks and 32 pieces of cobblestone translates to:
5 × 64 + 32 = 352 pieces of cobblestone
.
Better start mining ⛏!
How many blocks are there in a stack?
In Minecraft, a stack of blocks contains 64 blocks. If you have a stack of 64 items that can be crafted into blocks (such as iron ingots that can be crafted into blocks of iron) then you can make 7 solid blocks from the stack of 64 items, and still have 1 item left over.
How many diamonds are in a stack of diamond blocks?
There are 576 diamonds in a stack of diamond blocks. A stack of diamond blocks contains 64 diamond blocks, which are equivalent to 9 diamonds each.
Since 9 × 64 = 576
, there are, therefore, 576 diamonds in a stack of diamond blocks.
How many stacks are 1000 blocks?
In Minecraft, 1000 blocks fit into 15 full stacks and 40 extra blocks. That's because every stack contains 64 blocks. 15 × 64 + 40 = 1000
!
Why is the Minecraft stack limit 64?
Despite seemingly being a strange choice, 64 can be divided in many ways. You can divide it by 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32, as 64 itself is a power of 2. This divisibility makes stacks of 64 flexible in how they can be used in crafting recipes and in storage. Plus, it teaches us some math!