A shulker box is one of the best late game Minecraft items you can craft yourself.
Named after the shulker mobs, a shulker box is basically a full-sized chest that can store your items and keeps them once it is broken. It essentially works as a chest that can be picked up and carried around.
However it takes quite a bit of time and gameplay to actually get to the stage where you can, in fact, build one and we will help you get there.
Minecraft Shulker Box Recipe
- 1 chest
- 2 shulker shells
Combining these 3 elements on a crafting table will grant you a basic shulker box that is purple in color.
The chest for it is easy to make, but it’s the shulker shells that make it difficult for this item to be crafted. Shulker shells can only be obtained by slaying shulkers in the End City, for which you have to defeat the Ender Dragon first.
Even after defeating the Ender Dragon it’s finding the City that will certainly be a cause for hassle.
You will have to traverse many of the islands of the End, but luckily you are bound to find amazing loot while there, including an Elytra.
How Shulker Boxes Work
Once you do have your shulker box feel free to place it anywhere in the world.
They can be placed on the ground, on a wall, or even on a ceiling. When placed they will always have their top side facing away from the block they were placed on.
To open it just right click on it. The shulker box has as much space as a single chest.
Anything that is placed inside a shulker box will stay inside it when the shulker box is broken. It can be broken by any tool or even your own hand and will drop itself when destroyed.
The shulker box can also be dropped if destroyed by an explosion and it will keep its items. Explosions can never permanently destroy it.
Pistons and sticky pistons can also push shulker boxes. This will destroy them much like an explosion, but it will leave your items intact.
When you place the shulker box down again and open it all your items will still be there.
It shares a similar mechanic with an ender chest, however an ender chest is player specific. This means that if a player has a full ender chest and the other an empty one, each will see only what they put inside it.
The shulker box, in this sense, will allow anyone to find your items once they interact with the box.
Another unique mechanic a shulker box has is that it will tell you what items are inside it when you hover over it in your hotbar or inventory.
Dying Shulker Boxes
Another unique mechanic for shulker boxes is the fact that you can actually dye them! They can be dyed in any of the colors available in the world of Minecraft. That means a shulker box can be one of 16 different colors other than its original.
Originally all shulker boxes are a purpur like color.
To do this you just have to combine the box with the dye of your choice in the crafting menu.
This allows you to really personalize your storage. You can use this to tell apart your shulker box from a friend’s or you can use it to color code where your items are so you never have to check! It makes for a simple way to sort your items.
If you are ever unhappy with the color of your shulker box and wish to change it, you first have to toss it in a cauldron full of water.
This will consume one water level in the cauldron and make the box its base purpur color again.
