What are the best Minecraft enchantments and materials for pickaxe?

In Minecraft, mining is literally the name of the game. You’ll spend countless hours chipping away at the ground, in caverns, and more, all in search of precious resources that’ll help you fuel your constructions and power you up. So having a good pickaxe is quite essential.

While you can craft pickaxes of variable durability and strength using many kinds of materials, your best option will always be to strive for a Diamond Pickaxe (to easily get obsidian and continue your adventures in the Nether), and eventually a Netherite Pickaxe. This last one is currently the strongest and best material there is, but Diamond tools are always useful, so you can use it for a long time without fear of missing out on power.

Thankfully, Minecraft also has an entire system to enchant your equipment and make it even more powerful. The following is a list of every single enchantment available for pickaxes:

Don’t forget that while there’s six categories of enchantments, you can’t apply all of them at the same time on a single pickaxe. This is because a few of the effects conflict with each other, specifically Fortune and Silk Touch.

The best pickaxe enchantments in Minecraft 1.19

That’s right, we’re specifically talking about the current Minecraft version, 1.19, since this is the one that most people are playing right now. And of course, we’re talking vanilla here, no mods or alteration to the game. A new huge content patch is already on the way, set to release during the next few months, so this might change a little bit eventually.

Given all of that, what’s the best option for you? Here’s what all of them do, but we won’t really be ranking them this time as they’re all pretty good and dependant on what your playstyle is.

Efficiency

This enchantment increases the mining speed of the tool its applied to, which means that you’ll be able to break down blocks faster than normal. There’s 5 levels of this enchantment, and to get all the way to Efficiency V you’ll need to combine two pickaxes that have Efficiency IV at an anvil.

Fortune

If you want to get a lot of loot (and we do mean A LOT), this is the one you’ll want. Fortune multiplies the amount of resources that spawn from mining ore blocks, depending on its level, which translates to extra drops of coal, gold, diamonds, emeralds, nether gold, and many more.

It’s important to remember that this also works with other types of blocks, like glowstone, gravel, and even certain plants.

Silk Touch

This enchantment only has one level, since its effect is rather peculiar and applicable only in certain situations: it’ll let you pick up blocks as they are, instead of breaking them open and spawning loot. What this means is that if you find certain blocks that you like, but you’d rather take them back to place on your base, this enchantment will allow you to do so instead of breaking it. It can be quite the time saver for builders.

Unbreaking

Despite its name, this enchantment won’t make your tools last forever. However, it will help them last for a lot longer. Each level of this specific effect will increase the durability of your pickaxe by 100%, up to a total of 600% durability at level V.

This is something that most players will want to get for their most valuable possessions, but it really shines if you combine it with the next one.

Mending

With only one level, you know it’s going to be a good one. Mending will continually restore the durability of whatever tool has the enchantment every time the player gathers experience points. This means that the more you mine, the more your pickaxe will maintain itself. Mixed with Unbreaking, you basically ensure your tool will last for as long as you keep playing.

However, you can’t find this one through the enchanting table. You’ll have to find it in the world in the form of an enchanted book by way of treasure chests, or by trading with a villager.

Curse of Vanishing

Well, ok, this one isnt an actual enchantment. As the name suggests, this Curse actually is pretty bad for players, and its something that you might want to avoid; when a player dies while this is in their possesion, whether equipped or not, their entire inventory will disappear forever.

You can’t remove curses from items you find in the world, so if you come across a pickaxe with this “enchantment” you’re better off throwing it into a lava poo