20 Best Minecraft Utility Mods

Paulina Rodriguez
Paulina Rodriguez
20 Min Read

Mojang has added interesting mechanics and content into Minecraft for over a decade. Today, players have more flexibility than ever when starting a new world. However, there’s always room for improvement. The best Minecraft utility mods are guaranteed to improve your overall experience, whether the community creates features they’d love to see in Minecraft or tries to solve annoying issues. These mods range from minor quality-of-life fixes to complete overhauls, so feel free to test them and see if one of the featured entries suits your needs!

1

Just Enough Items (JEI)

Best Minecraft Uitlity Mod 1.18 JEI Just Enough Items Essential
Screenshot by mezz

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There was no other way to kickstart the best Minecraft utility mods list than with Just Enough Items (or JEI). It’s an item and recipe viewing mod compatible with almost every mod out there, and it’s arguably an essential requirement if you want to include add-ons to your game. 

JEI will consist of a side column at the inventory menu with all the items and blocks available in Minecraft. Besides, you can click on an object and see whether there’s a recipe associated with it. You can also use the search bar to type in and make your search easier, so no matter how many extra things you’ve added with mods, you can find what you need in mere seconds.

2

What The Hell Is That?

HWYLA Utility Visualization Minecraft Mod 1.18 Best
Screenshot by badasintended

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Have you downloaded a bunch of addons for your Minecraft world, and you have no idea what you’re looking at? Many people relied on HWYLA (Here’s What You’re Looking At), but since the mod author abandoned modding after 1.16.5., new creators have taken upon the challenge of including a vital utility mod for Minecraft 1.18.

Just download WTHIT and solve your doubts right away! It’s a simple Minecraft utility mod that will include a text box on top of the screen describing the item’s name and origin.  If you’re just returning to play Minecraft once more after a long hiatus, it’s still a good idea to have WTHIT at hand for checking out all the new items and blocks added into the latest versions. You can find the original Fabric version here!

3

JourneyMap

Essential Minecraft Utility Mapping Mod 1.18.1 Download
Screenshots by Lava Temptress

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Unfortunately, getting lost in Minecraft is pretty easy if you don’t have a good sense of direction or forget to write down your base’s coordinates. However, why not help yourself with an in-game mapping system like JourneyMap? If you’ve already figured it out from the screenshots and name, this mod will create a map of your Minecraft world as you explore and generate new chunks. Setting waypoints is intuitive and highly customizable, showing on the overall map. The best part is that you can access the map while playing as a full-screen or minimap or access the blueprints through your web browser!

Also: We’ve compiled the 20 BEST Minecraft Modpacks if you’re looking to overhaul your game from the ground up!

4

VanillaTweaks

Tweaks for Vanilla Minecraft Mod Utility Addon 1.18.1 CurseForge
Screenshot by StrikerRocker

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The following Minecraft utility mod is VanillaTweaks, designed for players that want to add vanilla-friendly content to the game without going overboard. You can find new enchantments, blocks, and items alongside tweaked vanilla behaviors to the world generation, crafting, and much more. The good news is that VanillaTweaks is available for Forge and Fabric, so there are more reasons to try it out! We suggest you check out their wiki page to find a complete breakdown of all the exciting features they’ve included in their mod.

5

Easy Magic

Easy Magic Minecraft Mod Useful Addon Download Curse Forge
Screenshot by Fuzs_

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Magic is an essential mechanic in Minecraft if you want to beat the game since enchanting your gear and weapons is the only realistic way to progress into late-game content. So why not add some much-needed changes to the Enchanting Table to make the process go smoother? Easy Magic adds an inventory to this crafting station so that you can leave the Lapis Lazuli and item in their position without worries. No more annoyances when dealing with magic! We must point out a configurable graphic detail added to the Enchanting Table, the floating items surrounding the block. You can also set it as flat to leave the sprites on top of the table!

6

VanillaPlus Tools

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We know that Minecraft tools are essential to anything you do in-game. But what if you could add vanilla-like tools that help you break down blocks in a 3×3 area in mere seconds? Vanilla Plus Tools introduce this concept with hammers and shovels you can craft with the pickaxes and shovels already available in Minecraft. If you’re looking for an upgrade that doesn’t steer far away from the vanilla experience, we think this checks all the boxes for that! While it’s true that building the Diamond tools will require 9 identical shovels or pickaxes to craft, we can assure you the grind is 100% worth it.

7

Client Tweaks

Client Tweaks Curse Forge Mod for Minecraft 1.18. Auto Climb Config
Screenshot by BlayTheNinth

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While Mojang has done a decent job with Minecraft’s controls, there’s always room for improvement. This rings particularly true with smaller quality-of-life improvements added by mods like Client Tweaks. What about adding music volume sliders to the Options screen? Or having auto-climb for ladders? With this Minecraft utility mod, you can do that and much more. 

Simple things like disabling the last torch placement in your inventory when slotted in your offhand or hiding offhand items with a keybind toggle can vastly improve anyone’s gaming experience. You can enable each tweak individually, making it an excellent utility mod for Minecraft to upgrade the experience to your liking. Some of the features are disabled by defect, so you should check out the mod’s in-game menu to see them all!

Related: Do you wish to organize your Minecraft instances with ease? Download an alternative launcher from our 10 BEST Minecraft Launchers list!

8

Dynamic Trees

Dynamic Trees Realistic Utility Mod Minecraft 1.18.1 Download Curse Forge Link
Screenshots by ferreusveritas

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Cutting down trees in Minecraft is almost always the first thing most players do when starting a new world. But how many times have you gone through the annoyance of replanting an entire forest you cut down for resources? Dynamic Trees’ goal is to overhaul this essential resource to add more aesthetically pleasing and vibrant trees into the game. 

Trees will grow from seeds progressively and naturally around obstacles, and saplings will undergo several growth stages before adulthood. The best part is that you can claim all the wood at once by chopping down the base! Dynamic Trees also adds two vanilla tree fruits, spawning Apples, and Cocoa Beans. The mod successfully incorporates real-world references into the game without breaking the immersion, and there are even more exciting features in the Dynamic Trees + addon. We highly encourage players to download it and see for themselves!

9

Inventory Sorter

Inventory Sorter Essential Minecraft Organizer Mod 1.18.1
Screenshots by Lynqoid

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Countless players have suffered through sorting their resources painstakingly between their inventory and storage. Some give up and dump everything to a chest, hoping to remember what compartment stores their precious loot. But gone are the endless hours trying to organize your chests and inventories to keep track of your belongings with Inventory Sorter! The middle click is the default action to automatically classify the current stock, making it painless and straightforward. This Minecraft utility mod is a must-have for every player!

10

Mouse Tweaks

Mouse Tweaks Addon for Minecraft Best Mods 1.18.1 Download Curse Forge
Screenshot by Clickbaiter

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Most players in the Java version use the keyboard and mouse to play Minecraft, but dragging and dropping stacked items one by one can get tiresome pretty quickly. Mouse Tweaks aims to add quality-of-life improvements to mouse functions, specifically for inventory sorting and crafting. Now you can drag your mouse around the crafting grid to place the blocks at once or hold an item and drag your mouse across the inventory to pick up the same type of items. Once you install Mouse Tweaks, you’ll be wondering why Mojang hasn’t added these features in vanilla Minecraft!

Also: Do you wish to organize your Minecraft instances with ease? Download an alternative launcher from our 10 BEST Minecraft Launchers list!

11

Crafting Tweaks

Crafting Grid Tweaks Useful Minecraft Mod Download Curse Forge
Screenshot by BlayTheNinth

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Crafting in Minecraft is an intuitive and accessible game mechanic. Still, whenever you’re trying to complete several recipes, inventory managing and placing items in the crafting grid can get tiresome pretty fast. Here’s where Crafting Tweaks tries to improve the crafting experience with additional features to save time and effort. Rotate, balance or clear the crafting grid with the extra buttons in the GUI! Other minor tweaks include instantly transferring items into the grid while clicking them, compressing or decompressing blocks to ingots or blocks with a customized key bind, and crafting a single full stack with just a right-click.

12

GraveStone Mod

GraveStone Addon Death for Minecraft Best Utility Mod
Screenshots by henkelmax

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It sucks to lose your items when dying in Minecraft, and it’s even worse when someone else gets to grab them. Here’s where GraveStone Mod comes into play to solve this annoying issue, generating tombstones for players after their death to hold all of their items. The grave will also display information about the player’s death when you right-click it. It’s an interesting mod for Minecraft 1.18 that will relieve the worry of losing your dropped items to lava!

When you respawn, you will have an Obituary with basic details of your death, like name, dimension, and coordinates of your death. If you’re looking for any utility mod in Minecraft that will improve your gaming experience, GraveStone Mod should always be part of your list!

13

TrashSlot

Trash Slot Delete Items for Minecraft 1.18.1 Best Mod List
Screenshot by BlayTheNinth

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Getting rid of all your leftover stacks or random junk in your chests shouldn’t turn into a waste of your precious time. Of course, you can always create a Lava trashcan to get rid of your unwanted items, but we cannot deny how useful it is to have a dedicated slot in our inventories. Introducing TrashSlot, this utility mod for Minecraft 1.18.1 will quickly help you get rid of unwanted items and blocks. If you accidentally drag an item to the trash slot, the mod will keep the last deleted item in place. Being an intuitive and customizable feature, its mechanic reminds us a lot of Terraria’s trash slot system!

Also: Grind resources and XP while AFK with the 12 Best Minecraft Mob Farms compatible with 1.18.1!

14

Pick Up Notifier

Pick Up Notifier Vanilla Addon Minecraft 1.18.1 1.17 1.16
Screenshot by Fuzs_

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Whether you’re returning to the last place you died and dropped all your items or you want to keep track of your pickups, Pick Up Notifier is an easy solution to precisely know what is getting into your inventory. The non-invasive notifications are highly configurable, so you can move the display’s position and hide the item sprites if you wish. To enable this option directly in-game, you’ll have to install the author’s Config Menus. That’s another quality-of-life Minecraft mod for 1.18 you can include to your list as a bonus from us!

15

FancyMenu

FancyMenu Custom Intro Minecraft Latest Release Mod Animations
Screenshots by Keksuccino

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Modding Minecraft reaches unexpected limits, and the GUI is no exception! From slideshows to animations and customized layouts, there’s nothing you cannot achieve with FanyMenu. You can completely overhaul the in-game’s menus with the help of these video tutorials uploaded by the mod’s creator.  FancyMenu requires Konkrete to function in Minecraft 1.15 and above correctly, and you can use Load My Resources if you want to include animations in your menus. If you’d like to see some examples of this excellent addon, you can find several videos on YouTube with custom menus and animations created by the community using this mod!

16

Paintings ++

Paintings Custom GUI Minecraft Utility Mod 1.18
Screenshot by AbsolemJackdaw

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Have you ever found yourself eternally placing and destroying paintings to find the one you truly want for your interior decoration? Problem solved! Paintings ++ has a straightforward solution— when placing the item in position, the custom GUI will pop up and show what images you can choose in a scrollable list. You can add different paintings by following this guide to create a custom resource pack with all the pictures you’d like to include. Note that if you choose to download the Fabric version, don’t forget to download the dependencies to run this mod properly!

Also: Trying to find the perfect tutorial for building your next base? Check out our ultimate list with the 50 Best Minecraft House Ideas!

17

Nature’s Compass

Nature Compass Biome Searcher for Minecraft 1.18 Download Curse Forge
Screenshot by Chaosyr

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Have you ever spent countless hours trying to find a specific biome with no success? Knowing how world generation can play against you for gathering biome-specific resources, a Minecraft utility mod like Nature’s Compass can save you a lot of headaches. As the name implies, you can craft a compass to guide you towards the biome you select in their GUI. Access the GUI by right-clicking while holding the compass, where you can also view information related to all biomes available. Not only does it help you find rare biomes, but when the compass isn’t pointing at a specific biome, it will point towards the world spawn. It seems like a must-have in any mod list, so it’s time to install Nature’s Compass and search for the elusive Mushroom fields!

18

Enchantment Descriptions

Enchantment Description JEI Compatibility for Minecraft 1.18.1 Download Mods
Screenshots by DarkhaxDev

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We’ve already discussed how magic in Minecraft is essential for advancing into late-game content. However, not everyone is a long-time veteran who knows the enchantment’s effect by heart. Or perhaps you’ve downloaded a bunch of magic Minecraft mods to spice things up, but you’re unsure of the new spells’ effect. Therefore, something like Enchantment Descriptions is perfect for newcomers who want to avoid the struggle of learning how each enchantment works the hard way. Being a lightweight and non-intrusive mod, it’s ideal for players with any specs!

19

Equipment Compare

Equipment Compare Custom Minecraft Mod Utility Latest Release Download
Screenshots by Kreezxil

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Including Equipment Compare in your download list for your future adventures should be a no-brainer since an instant comparison between items is even more helpful when adding extra armor mods into the mix. Whether you want to know the exact stats of your armour or want to keep track of the additional content you’ve added, Equipment Compare is one of those Minecraft utility mods we cannot believe it’s not a vanilla feature. Just like other entries in this list, it’s a non-intrusive addition to the game’s GUI and demands almost no additional resources to run correctly.

Also: We’ve ranked the 20 Best 1.18 Minecraft Seeds to help you decide how your next world can look!

20

Cosmetic Armor Reworked

Cosmetic Armor Reworked Utility Mod for Minecraft 1.18 Curse Forge
Screenshot by LainMI

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Surprisingly, not everyone loves the way Diamond or Netherite armor looks on their characters. Since we already know that mods can solve everything, we have Cosmetic Armor Reworked to help you fix this inconvenience. You can now wear another armor as a cosmetic item to don’t compromise your sense of fashion. You can toggle each armor piece to hide and you can tweak the config option to allow you to keep your cosmetic armor after death. Don’t forget that any armor placed in the cosmetic slots won’t have any effects on your character!

We hope that this list has helped you improve your experience and eliminate some annoyances from the game. We’re always pleased to feature the amazing content creators from the Minecraft community. Given the sheer number of mods available in Curse Forge, Planet Minecraft and other similar sites, sometimes it’s hard to find the perfect addons to solve your issues or needs.

Have we missed any essential Minecraft utility mods here? Is there any featured mod you’ve already tried out? Let us know in the comments and thank you for reading!

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Spanish-speaking gamer with too many hours logged into Minecraft, The Binding of Isaac, Elder Scrolls Online and AC:NH.
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