Minecraft Curse of Vanishing: How to remove it & use the shulker box

Minecraft artwork and logo with the words 'Curse of Vanishing'Mojang

The Curse of Vanishing in Minecraft is one of the sandbox title’s sneaky little enchantments, affecting held items upon player death. Fortunately, it can be overruled slightly with the aid of the shulker box.

While Minecraft gives its players a whole host of freedoms as they explore different seeds, the Curse of Vanishing forces players to be a little more thoughtful about how they traverse the world.

If you’re looking to get rid of this pesky rare enchantment in Minecraft to stop armor, weapons, and tools from disappearing, you’ve come to the right place.

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An enchantment table in MinecraftMojang
Contrary to popular opinion, The Curse of Vanishing cannot be obtained via the Enchantment Table.

What is the Curse of Vanishing in Minecraft?

The Curse of Vanishing is one of two curses that players may encounter within Minecraft. While it has no effect on how you play the game while you’re alive, you’ll need to plan ahead for any treacherous journeys if you’re carrying something with this enchantment.

Upon player death, any items that are in your inventory or are equipped will completely disappear – and we don’t just mean from your inventory: it disappears from the game world entirely.

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Unfortunately collecting a cursed item is completely up to chance, as they are found out in the open world by fishing, looting chests, or by purchasing an enchantment book from villager librarians. This means there’s no active way to avoid getting them.

While this curse is incredibly annoying, the tainted item will not vanish if it’s stored in a chest, or if you’ve manually dropped it onto the ground.

Removing the Curse of Vanishing

A screenshot of a river in MinecraftMojang
You can pick up items with the Curse of Vanishing in a few different ways, including from fishing.

Picked up an item you’ve been trying to find for a long time, only to realize it’s got the Curse of Vanishing? While there’s no sure-fire way to remove it (grindstones are no help, unfortunately), you can make sure that it doesn’t get destroyed when you die.

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Enter the shulker box. This handy item that’s predominantly used for storing or transporting items can also come in incredibly useful in a pinch for this dreaded curse.

If you’re about to head on a journey and are unsure of whether or not you’ll survive, place the cursed item you want to keep inside, and it’ll still be there after you respawn from any unforeseen deaths.

As well as utilizing a shulker box, players who want to get around the effects with the use of gamerules can do so. For this, you’ll need to type ‘/gamerule KeepInventory true‘ with cheats enabled on your world.

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So, there you have it – everything you need to know about the Curse of Vanishing in Minecraft.

Make sure to check out our other guides for more useful tips and how-tos:

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