The allay in Minecraft: how to get one and make it sort

The allay in Minecraft is a small blue flying mob that collects items for you. Give it one item and it flies off to find more of the same, then brings them back to you or to a note block it heard. You find allays in cages at pillager outposts and in the jail cells of woodland mansions, and you can make more with a jukebox and an amethyst shard. Below: where to find one, what it does, how to duplicate it and how to use allays to sort items. Checked against the game data of Java 26.3 on 27 October 2026.

Where do you find an allay?

Allays don’t spawn on their own in the world. They’re only placed when a structure generates:

• Pillager outposts: about half of the dark oak cages next to an outpost hold one to three allays.
• Woodland mansions: about half of the jail cells hold one to three allays.

An outpost is the easier pick. It’s a tall tower of dark oak with pillagers around it, on plains, deserts, savannas, taigas, snowy plains and in the mountains. Free the allay by breaking part of its cage, but deal with the pillagers first: they shoot with crossbows. Have a cartographer? An explorer map makes the mansion easier to find.

What does an allay do in Minecraft?

An allay picks up dropped items of the same type as the item it holds, and delivers them.

1. Give it an item. Use the item on the allay, for example a piece of cobblestone. The allay now follows you.
2. It goes looking. It searches for dropped copies of that item within 32 blocks of you and picks them up.
3. It brings them back. It drops them near you, then waits three seconds and looks again. It carries up to a full stack at once.

The allay sticks to the last player who gave it something, within 64 blocks. To take the item back, use an empty hand on it; the allay goes back to wandering around. It doesn’t look at enchantments or custom names when it searches, but it does carry differently enchanted or named items on separate trips. The allay can’t enter water, although it does try to reach items under water.

An allay has 20 health points, heals 2 per second and can’t be hurt by its own player. If another mob hits it, it flies away for a few seconds. Don’t want to lose it? Give it a name. In Java a named name tag simply names the allay instead of being handed over. More on that in how to make a name tag.

Make an allay collect your items

An allay is great for anything you drop in bulk:

• items flying from a farm that throws its harvest on the ground;
• cobblestone, dirt or sand while you dig out a big area;
• bones or arrows that skeletons leave behind.

Two tips. Stay within 64 blocks, or the allay loses track of you. And on a server, remember that other players’ dropped items count too: if your allay holds diamonds and someone drops diamonds nearby, it happily brings them to you. If the game rule mob_griefing is off, allays pick up nothing at all; you can still hand them an item, but they won’t collect.

How to duplicate an allay

You can turn one allay into two. You need a jukebox, any music disc and amethyst shards.

1. Place a jukebox near the allay and play a music disc.
2. Wait until the allay starts dancing, a little spinning movement.
3. Give the dancing allay an amethyst shard.

The allay splits in two. Both then have a five-minute cooldown before they can be duplicated again. The new allay doesn’t take over a name or other settings of the original, and allays have no baby form. Amethyst shards come from amethyst clusters in amethyst geodes, underground. Parrots dance to a jukebox too, by the way; see how to tame a parrot.

Allays with note blocks

An allay that hears a note block play within 16 blocks while it’s delivering brings its items to that note block instead of to you. It stays with that note block for 30 seconds and keeps dropping what it finds there. After that it goes back to its player.

That makes a simple sorting system:

1. Give every allay its own item, for example one cobblestone, one bone and one string.
2. Build a separate spot for each allay with a note block and a hopper into a chest, a few blocks apart.
3. Make each note block play every few seconds with a redstone clock, so the allay hears it again before the 30 seconds are over.
4. Drop mixed items in the middle. Every allay brings its own item to its own note block, and the hopper collects it.

An allay drops its items within about three blocks of its note block, so make the collection area a little bigger than one hopper. Keep the spots far enough apart that each allay mostly hears its own note block. There’s an advancement for this too: Birthday Song, for having an allay drop a cake at a note block. Fitting, on a site called CakeHosting.

Allays on a server

On a shared world an allay is a personal helper: it follows the last player who gave it something, and only one player at a time. Allays follow you through a Nether portal if they’re close, unless they’re tied to a fence with a lead. Some tips:

• Fetch allays as a group and tie them up near spawn with leads, so everyone can borrow one.
• Name your allays, so you can see whose is whose.
• A big allay sorting system is fun, but each allay is a mob that moves and searches. A few dozen are fine; hundreds cost a server real processing time.

Large farms that drop items on the ground? An allay is a nice extra next to hoppers, for example at an iron farm.