Axe

For other uses, see Axe (disambiguation).

* Wooden
* Stone
* Iron
* Golden
* Diamond
* Netherite

**Java Edition**

* Golden: 32
* Wooden: 59
* Stone: 131
* Iron: 250
* Diamond: 1561
* Netherite: 2031

An **axe** is a tool used to hasten the breaking of wood-based or other tough organic blocks, strip or scrape certain blocks, or as a melee weapon that can disable shields it hits.

## Obtaining

### Crafting

 Damaged Matching **Axe** |  | The durability of the two axes is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.

### Repairing

#### Unit repair

An axe can be repaired in an anvil by adding units of the tier's repair material, with each repair material restoring 25% of the axe's maximum durability, rounded down.

### Mob loot

#### Equipment

Main article: Drops § Equipped items
A vindicator spawns with an iron axe and has an 8.5% chance (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II, and 11.5% with Looting III) of dropping it upon death by the player. It is usually heavily damaged and is sometimes enchanted.

A piglin brute spawns with a golden axe and has an 8.5% chance (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II, and 11.5% with Looting III) of dropping it upon death by the player. Also, in *Java Edition*, zombified piglins can drop their golden axe (with the same chance as piglin brute drop) if they have been zombified from a piglin brute.

#### Raids

In *Bedrock Edition*, Vindicator and pillagers that spawn in raids have a 4.1% chance (5.12% on hard) to drop a badly-damaged iron axe, which is sometimes enchanted with a random enchantment. A vindicator can drop 2 iron axes, one from natural equipment and one from raid drops.

### Trading

Novice-level Toolsmith villagers have a 25% chance to sell a stone axe for one emerald, journeyman-level Toolsmith villagers have a 25% chance to sell an enchanted iron axe for eight emeralds, and expert-level Toolsmith villagers have a 50% chance to sell an enchanted diamond axe for 13 emeralds.‌[*Bedrock Edition only*]

Novice-level Toolsmith villagers have a 40% chance to sell a stone axe for one emerald, journeyman-level Toolsmith villagers have a 40% chance to sell an enchanted iron axe for 7-22 emeralds, and expert-level Toolsmith villagers have a 66.67% chance to sell an enchanted diamond axe for 18-35 emeralds.‌[*Java Edition only*]

Novice-level Weaponsmith villagers sell an iron axe for 3 emeralds as one of their trades, and master-level Weaponsmith villagers sell an enchanted diamond axe for 12 emeralds.‌[*Bedrock Edition only*]

Novice-level Weaponsmith villagers have a 66.67% chance to sell an iron axe for 3 emeralds. Master-level Weaponsmith villagers always offer to sell an enchanted diamond axe for 18-35 emeralds.‌[*Java Edition only*]

The enchantments are the same as the ones obtained from an enchantment table at levels 5–19.

### Villager gifts

Toolsmith villagers occasionally throw stone axes at players with the Hero of the Village status effect.‌[*Java Edition only*]

Weaponsmith villagers occasionally throw either stone, gold, or iron axes at players with the Hero of the Village status effect.‌[*Java Edition only*]

### Structure loot

In *Java Edition*, a sealed room in woodland mansions can appear that has a chest always containing an Efficiency I iron axe.

1. ↑ a b All enchantments are equally probable, *including* treasure enchantments (except Soul Speed, and Swift Sneak), and any level of the enchantment is equally probable.

## Usage

### Chopping

An axe is used to break logs, blocks derived from wood and some other blocks faster than by using other tools. An axe uses 1 durability to break 1 block. For blocks that break instantly, it uses 0 durability.

#### Durability

Each tier of axe has a different durability:

 **Netherite** | 2031

#### Speed

The following table summarizes the speed at which axes of different qualities perform.

1. ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

### Stripping

Using an axe on a log, wood block, block of bamboo\, or block of copper causes it to become a stripped log, stripped wood block, block of stripped bamboo, or removes one layer of oxidization or wax, respectively. This consumes one point of durability from the axe.

### Weapon

An axe loses 2 points of durability when used as a weapon.

#### Bedrock Edition

In *Bedrock Edition*, axes always attack instantly and deal 1 less damage than a sword of the same quality but it lowers the durability of armor and shields faster than any other tool in-game.

#### Java Edition

Attacking a shield user with an axe should have a chance to disable the use of the shield for 5 seconds, but currently this always disables a shield. The base chance is 25%, plus 5 percentage points per level of Efficiency on the axe, plus 75 percentage points if attacking while sprinting. Vindicators, piglin brutes, or other mobs with commands always disable the player's shield. Damage done when using an axe as a weapon is more than that of a sword of the same tier, though they take longer than a sword to recover, resulting in lower DPS (with the exception of golden axes). The damage dealt and cooldown time depends on the type:

1. ↑ The formula to find the total lifetime damage is `ceil(*durability* ÷ 2) × *damage per hit*`. The durability is halved then ceiled because axes take double durability when used as a weapon, and the last 1 durability can also deal damage. The formula also ignores enchantments and critical hits, and assumes each attack is performed at maximum charge.

### Enchantments

An axe can receive the following enchantments:

1. ↑ a b Silk Touch and Fortune are mutually exclusive.
2. ↑ a b c d Sharpness, Smite, Bane of Arthropods, and Cleaving‌[*upcoming: JE Combat Tests*] are mutually exclusive.
3. ↑ a b c d Fire Aspect, Looting, Knockback, and Sweeping Edge currently exist, but they can be used only for swords.

### Fuel

Wooden axes can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per axe.

### Piglins

Piglins are attracted to golden axes and run toward any golden axes on the ground, and inspect it for 6 to 8 seconds before putting it in their inventory.

## Sounds

*Java Edition*:

*Bedrock Edition*:

1. ↑ a b c d MCPE-106552

## Data values

### ID

*Java Edition*:

*Bedrock Edition*:

## Advancements

* Bell
* Block of Gold
* Block of Raw Gold
* Clock
* Enchanted Golden Apple
* Gilded Blackstone
* Glistering Melon Slice
* Gold Ingot
* Gold Ore
* Golden Apple
* **Golden Axe**
* Golden Boots
* Golden Carrot
* Golden Chestplate
* Golden Helmet
* Golden Hoe
* Golden Horse Armor
* Golden Leggings
* Golden Pickaxe
* Golden Shovel
* Golden Sword
* Light Weighted Pressure Plate
* Nether Gold Ore
* Deepslate Gold Ore
* Raw Gold

## Issues

Issues relating to "Axe" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

## Trivia

* Before Java Edition 1.13, in the language files, axes were referred to as Hatchets.
* Weaponsmith villagers gifting stone, iron and golden axes is a reference to the story *The Honest Woodcutter*, where a woodcutter dropped his axe into a river, and is successively provided a silver and a golden axe by the river god.[*citation needed*]

## Gallery

* Stone axe in the Super Duper Graphics Pack.

## References

1. ↑ MC-197537
2. ↑ "We missed a change in recent changelogs for the Bedrock beta that you may like - we have now made a parity fix that makes shields get disabled for 5 seconds when attacked by an Axe-wielding mob or player. We will make sure to list this properly in the next beta :)" – @kingbdogz on X, March 17, 2022
3. ↑ *1.8/assets/minecraft/lang/en\_US.lang*, line 915: **item.hatchetIron.name= Iron Axe**

## External Links

* Taking Inventory: Axe – Minecraft.net on February 6, 2020