The best data packs for Minecraft

Modified content is one way to keep Minecraft fresh even after years. However, most popular content consists of large modpacks and cosmetic enhancements to the game, such as shaders and texture packs. You can completely transform your game with extensive modpacks that can be challenging to install, or simply change the appearance of things.

Therefore, data packs are an amazing tool for Minecraft players and are also heavily underestimated. They bring changes of various magnitudes to the game without necessarily compromising the fundamental Minecraft experience. Here you will find the best Minecraft data packs to download.

Updated on September 4, 2023, by Jacqueline Zalace: Data packs are great for those who want to keep their Minecraft experience largely unchanged. We have added more data packs for you to check out and removed ones that are no longer relevant or functional.

Data Packs Vs. Mods

Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at data packs compared to mods. Mods can be large or small, but regardless of their size, they modify the game and add new features. This can be as simple as new textures or even a completely new crafting system.

Data packs, on the other hand, work with what is already present in the game. Essentially, they rearrange the existing elements in the game to create something new. You won't see new creatures, textures, or mechanics with data packs. In fact, many describe data packs as "vanilla mods."

16 Mob Health Bar

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Mob health bars are incredibly useful when fighting strong enemies or simply wanting to see how much damage you can inflict on a poor innocent pig. However, it becomes an addition you don't want to go without after playing for a while.

It's not a game-changing feature, but it can prove incredibly useful when you reach the later parts of the game and decide to take on the Guardian. After all, you want to make sure you know if any of your attacks are causing even a small fraction of damage.

15 Pillager Illager Fortresses

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Strongholds bring something new to the original Minecraft experience. There are many players out there who rarely play this style of Minecraft, especially with the introduction of complex mods that allow space travel or quest lines. This is for those players who want to explore something new without having to install hundreds of complicated mods.

Basically, the data pack "Pillager Illager Fortresses" introduces some impressively designed and loot-filled structures. It's important to note that these are separate units from the Pillager Outposts and will replace the igloos. Nonetheless, these structures look fantastic and quickly become something to watch out for and explore.

14 Gravestones

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Dying is the worst thing that can happen when playing Minecraft. If you're far from your base, you can say goodbye to your valuable diamonds or useful tools. Fortunately, while there are many mods that can help with this, there is also a very useful data pack you can install to ensure you always get your loot back when a Creeper decides to explode during a mining session.

Essentially, this data pack ensures that instead of scattering your items everywhere to potentially disappear, it creates a cute little tombstone. This tombstone preserves all your belongings and will never disappear. All you have to do is go back to the point where you died, crouch next to the stone, and your inventory will be restored just as it was before.

13 Crop Harvesting

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For all the enthusiastic farmers out there, nothing is more tedious than harvesting all the crops just to immediately replant seeds again. Fortunately, alongside some other useful data packs, there are aspects you can modify to make your life a little easier. Undoubtedly, this data pack is one of them.

Essentially, when you hold a diamond hoe in your hand, you will automatically collect the harvest while simultaneously planting seeds for the next crop. This significantly simplifies life as a farmer, even though it only works for wheat, potatoes, carrots, nether wart, and beetroots.

12 Autoplant

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Cutting down trees is one of the basic tasks that every player eventually needs to do, but the more tedious part is replanting saplings to ensure you don't completely deforest your starting area. However, few players feel inclined to do so as they want to experience adventures, build structures, and defeat monsters.

The Autoplant data pack takes care of planting for you. Once an item that can be replanted drops, it is not picked up but instead the game automatically attempts to replant it, provided you are hovering over a suitable planting surface. This also works for crops as long as the items are above tilled farmland.

11 Fast Leaf Decay

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Speaking of trees and chopping them down, once you have felled the trunk, the leaves will slowly decay and drop various items such as apples, sticks, and saplings. This can be extremely tedious if you don't feel like waiting for the leaves to decay.

There is also a data pack for that, which speeds up and makes leaf decay more efficient. No more waiting long for the leaves to decay while you could be using your time much more productively.

10 Silk Touch Spawners

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Silk Touch is one of the most powerful and useful enchantments in Minecraft. It allows players to mine any block in its current form without destroying or altering it. This works on a variety of blocks and items, making it an essential enchantment, particularly on a pickaxe.

However, even with Silk Touch, mob spawners cannot be mined. Fortunately, a data pack addresses this limitation and allows you to create clean, customized mob farms as you wish. This is a quite powerful data pack that can slightly alter the traditional gameplay experience, so use it with caution.

9 Armored Elytra

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Ultimately, most players will want to venture into the end cities to discover the elusive Elytra - a highly coveted treasure that grants you the ability to fly. This rare and precious item is definitely the hallmark of an experienced player who has completed pretty much everything else in the game.

That being said, using the Elytra can be somewhat inconvenient. When equipped, they replace the space of a chestplate on your character. This means that you lose armor points. With this data pack, the Elytra finally receives some armor, so you can wear it at all times and still be able to fight against a horde of creatures without worrying about taking damage. To combine the two, you simply need to drop an Elytra and a chestplate armor on an anvil.

8 Double Shulker Shells

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The best way to store items is undoubtedly the Shulker Box. Shulker Boxes need to be crafted using a chest and two Shulker Shells, which makes them somewhat expensive considering that Shulkers sometimes only drop one shell.

This handy data pack ensures that Shulker Shells are always dropped in pairs when a Shulker is defeated. This is especially useful on multiplayer servers where players may be competing for resources. However, it's also a pleasant quality-of-life improvement for single-player worlds.

7 Anti Creeper Grief

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Builders will be familiar with the challenge of building safely in Minecraft's Survival mode. It's annoying to constantly watch out for creatures spawning inside your structure at night and making sure Creepers don't wander too close, risking a sudden explosion right behind you and undoing hours of hard work.

The "Anti Creeper Grief" data pack keeps Creepers as they are, but their explosions no longer cause any damage. Your buildings are now completely protected from these explosive troublemakers. For Nether builders, there is even a version of this data pack for Ghasts, in case Ghasts prove to be a nuisance.

6 Multiplayer Sleep

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Those who play on multiplayer servers are most likely familiar with this extremely popular data pack. "Multiplayer Sleep" is a cornerstone of many servers and allows for smooth and seamless gameplay at any time. Normally, in a Minecraft multiplayer world, all players have to sleep at the same time to make the day reappear.

With this data pack, however, it is sufficient for only one player to be in bed to advance the day. This is tremendously useful and saves players from the need to constantly carry their beds around.

5 Treecapitator

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Treecapitator is the ultimate data pack for tree felling and a necessity, especially when you're planning a large wooden structure. Once you break a block of a tree, all other connected log blocks will automatically be broken and dropped to the ground.

This is extremely useful against those massive oak trees that seem to go on forever and have wood blocks hidden several blocks high in the leaves. The data pack has also been balanced to include durability updates for your axe, depending on how many blocks the tree had.

4 Better Villages

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Minecraft villages can be fun to explore at times, but sometimes they can feel a bit lifeless. With the "Better Villages" data pack, you can see multiple enhanced villages, like the one shown in the image above.

These buildings are designed in the style of the data pack creator, jlt_elisa, ensuring consistency across the villages. Currently, you can find enhanced villages in the plains, snowy biomes, and deserts, with more to come in the future.

3 New In Town

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"New In Town" is one of the most ambitious data packs in this list, bringing an RPG feel to the game. This data pack promises a "settler experience": you must build a village from scratch, defend your land, and explore the world around you.

While doing so, you will progress through the "story" that goes hand in hand with the traditional Minecraft gameplay. For example, as you advance in the story, you will eventually encounter content related to the End. In the traditional Minecraft world, this is also considered a fairly late-game stage.

2 Ships Out On The Oceans

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Listen to this idea: What if ships... were sailing in the ocean? That's exactly what this data pack allows us to do! With "Ships Out On The Oceans," you can encounter ships in the ocean that come in different variations, such as ships for villages and illagers.

In addition to ships, you can also find stranded crews in the remains of shipwrecks. Will you become the king of the seas, or will an undead ship drive you away in fear?

1 Terralith

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Last but not least, we have Terralith. This extensive data pack completely changes the world generation. A total of 85 biomes are added with this pack, and even the existing biomes in the game are adjusted.

With this data pack, you can explore realistic biomes that occur in real life, as well as those of a more fantastical nature, such as the Mirage Isles. There is a lot to explore overall.