How to make a Nether Portal or an End Portal in Minecraft to teleport between dimensions (2024)

• There are two major kinds of portals in Minecraft: The Nether Portal and the End Portal.
• To make a Nether Portal, you'll need at least 10 obsidian blocks and some way to light them on fire.
• You can find End Portals already built in strongholds, but you'll need Eyes of Ender to activate them.

In Minecraft, there are three "dimensions" you can play in: The Overworld, the Nether, and the End. Every game starts in the Overworld, and that's where you'll spend most of your time.

To get to the other dimensions, you have to build portals — or find the pre-built portals scattered around the Overworld.

How to make a Nether Portal in Minecraft

The Nether is a bit like Minecraft's version of hell. It's filled with lava, fire, and undead warriors. But it's also the only place you can find important items like blaze rods and glowstones.

To make a Nether Portal, you'll need two things: Obsidian and some way to set the obsidian on fire.

There are a few ways to get obsidian. Obsidian blocks spawn whenever water flows into lava, and you can mine it with a diamond pickaxe. You can also find them spawned naturally in some woodland mansions or ocean ruins.

When it comes to the fire, you should use a flint and steel tool. Combining one iron ingot with one unit of flint (which you can find by mining gravel) gives you a flint and steel. Use the flint and steel on any block to set it on fire.

You only need 10 obsidian blocks, but getting 14 blocks makes building the portal frame easier. You only need one flint and steel.

Once you've got your obsidian, use it to build your portal frame. Depending on whether you have 14 obsidian blocks or 10, there are two ways to make the portal frame.

If you have 14 obsidian blocks, the frame should be four blocks long and five blocks tall. Place four blocks in a row on the ground, then stack four blocks on both sides of that row. Use your last two blocks to connect the pillars at the top.

You can make the same portal with only 10 obsidian blocks by cutting out the corners. Build your portal in the same way as above, but replace the corners with any type of block. Once you're done, feel free to destroy those corner blocks.

You've now got your portal frame. To activate the frame and turn it into a real portal, use your flint and steel on any of the blocks.

A purple haze will fill the frame. Jump into the haze and stand there for a few seconds, and you'll be transported to the Nether.

How to make an End Portal in Minecraft

Unless you're playing in Creative Mode (where you have access to every block in the game), there isn't any way to build an End Portal from scratch. Instead, you'll need to find one that's already been partially built inside of a stronghold, and finish it using Eyes of Ender.

You can find strongholds by throwing Eyes of Ender into the air, and moving in the direction that they fly. Once you find the portal, activate it by placing an Eye of Ender into all twelve portal frames.

For more details on how to craft Eyes of Ender or find a stronghold (and how to make an End Portal in Creative Mode), check out our full article and video on how to make an End Portal.

How to make other portals in Minecraft

There are a few other kinds of portals in Minecraft. Two of them — the Exit Portal and End Gateway — can't actually be crafted. You can only spawn them by killing the Ender Dragon, or by using console commands.

The last type of portal is the Funky Portal. Added as an April Fool's joke in 2020, you could make a Funky Portal by throwing a book into a Nether Portal. Once you stepped inside, the Funky Portal would teleport you into one of 2.1 billion randomized dimensions.

You can't make Funky Portals in the current version of Minecraft. If you want to see them, you'll have to open the Launcher, click Installations at the top, click New installation, then pick Snapshot 20w14infinite from the Version drop-down menu.