How to make a nether portal in Minecraft

You make a nether portal from at least ten blocks of obsidian: build an upright frame four blocks wide and five blocks tall, and leave out the corners if you like. Light the inside with flint and steel, wait for the purple swirl and step in.

Below you’ll learn how to get obsidian without a diamond pickaxe, how to link portals and what not to do in the Nether. Checked against Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.52.

Which blocks do you need?

The frame has to stand upright and can be bigger, up to 23 by 23 blocks. A large portal works exactly the same, it just costs more obsidian. A fire charge works as a lighter too.

A portal without a diamond pickaxe

Obsidian only drops when you mine it with a diamond or netherite pickaxe. Don’t have one yet? There are two clever ways round it:

• Cast it yourself. Obsidian forms wherever water flows over a lava source. Build a mould from ordinary blocks in the shape of the frame, place a lava source with a lava bucket where an obsidian block should go and pour water over it. Block by block you build the whole frame without mining a thing. Keep that water bucket handy.
• Finish a ruined portal. A ruined portal is a broken frame you’ll find in both the Overworld and the Nether, usually with a chest holding obsidian and flint and steel. Fill the gaps and light it. Note that crying obsidian doesn’t count and has to come out.

How do you light it?

1. Finish the whole frame first. The fire has to come last: if you light a half-built frame, nothing happens when you add the final block.
2. Use flint and steel on the inside of the bottom obsidian block.
3. Step into the purple. After four seconds you’re taken to the Nether; in Creative it’s instant.

A nether portal never lights in the End. And a portal can go out: any explosion, such as a ghast’s fireball, switches the whole portal off. So always bring flint and steel into the Nether.

Linking portals between worlds

The Nether is eight times smaller: one block in the Nether equals eight blocks in the Overworld, except for height. When you go through a portal, the game looks for a portal near the converted spot on the other side. If it can’t find one, it builds one itself. To see where you are, show your coordinates.

1. Note where your Overworld portal stands. In Java you see your coordinates with F3; in Bedrock, turn on Show Coordinates in the world settings.
2. Divide X and Z by 8 and round down. Height (Y) stays the same.
3. Build your second portal at that spot in the Nether, as close to that height as you can.
4. Test it. If you come out at your own portal, they’re linked.

In Java the game searches within 128 blocks in the Overworld and within 16 blocks in the Nether; in Bedrock it searches 128 blocks on both sides. So build your portals at the converted spot, or you’ll pop out of the wrong one. Commands for teleporting around are in our Minecraft commands guide.

Staying safe in the Nether

• Wear some gold. With at least one piece of golden armour, piglins leave you alone, as long as you don’t open chests or mine gold.
• Never sleep there. A bed explodes in the Nether, and harder than TNT.
• Bring a Potion of Fire Resistance. It lets you survive a dip in lava. How to brew one is in our potions guide.
• Put cobblestone round your portal. A ghast’s fireballs can’t break cobblestone.
• Your compass spins. A normal compass only works in the Overworld. A compass you use on a lodestone in the Nether will point you back to it there.

What next? The Nether is where you find ancient debris for the strongest material in the game: how to get netherite. It’s also where you get blaze rods for eyes of ender, for when you go on to find the End portal.