The Best Pickaxe Enchantments in Minecraft

Minecraft's pickaxe is the player's most reliable tool, and one they'll likely use the most often. Crafted from the best diamonds and upgraded to a Netherite pickaxe for the best performance, it's an iconic item of the survival-and-build game.

Like all other tools in Minecraft, pickaxes can also be enchanted. However, for players who are new to Minecraft or haven't dealt with enchantments much yet, picking an enchantment can be difficult or confusing. Here are the best pickaxe enchantments in Minecraft:

Minecraft Fast Mining Enchantment 2023

Silk Touch

This enchantment is more of a niche pick, but it's essential for players who want to mine blocks and objects without breaking them. There are plenty of objects in Minecraft that vanish when broken with a regular pickaxe, and Silk Touch essentially prevents that.

Silk Touch lets players mine any block in its current form. This means players can mine glass blocks, coral blocks without killing them, and even grass blocks safely with a pickaxe. Silk Touch is especially vital for builders, since players won't lose blocks by breaking them if they're building something big and ambitious.

Silk Touch only comes in a single tier. Unlike some other enchantments in the game, it has no level, but players need to be level 30 to be able to randomly unlock the enchantment from the level 3 enchanting slot at the enchanting table.

Unbreaking

Whether it's from a long, intense mining session or otherwise, everyone has broken a pickaxe once or twice. There's nothing as frustrating as a pickaxe that forces a player to craft a new one with whatever materials they have on hand, deep in a cave with no way out. Luckily, there's an enchantment that can eliminate that worry.

With the Unbreaking enchantment, players get a random chance that their pickaxe won't use any durability when they break a block. Unbreaking also boosts the effectiveness of the pickaxe's durability, meaning it can withstand far more damage than other pickaxes.

Unbreaking's maximum tier is 3, and it can be obtained using an enchanting table. In rare cases, it can also be found through fishing, enchanted books, and trading with librarian villagers. Unbreaking III is definitely an enchantment players will want, since it will maximize the efficiency of their mining trips or other adventures.

Efficiency

Any Minecraft player knows that the most time-consuming task in the game is mining for resources. Finding diamonds with a simple iron pickaxe can take a long time, especially following the world generation changes introduced in Minecraft's 1.18 update. Now, diamonds are most commonly found deep down, where deepslate is most common. Mining this material out with a regular pickaxe takes a bit of time.

That's why Efficiency is such a huge enchantment to pick for a pickaxe. Players will gain the ability to mine blocks faster with their enchanted pickaxe. Players interested in strip mining and resource gathering will definitely want to invest in this enchantment above all else, and it's also great to pair with other enchantments.

Efficiency comes in five tiers. However, Efficiency V can only be obtained when players combine two Efficiency IV enchanted books on an anvil. To naturally unlock Efficiency IV, players need to be level 30 before the enchantment has a chance to appear in the enchanting table's tier 3 slot.

Fortune

Speaking of mining for diamonds, when the goal is getting more resources with less effort, the Fortune enchantment is a Minecraft player's best friend. Fortune essentially lets players mine any ore block for an increased amount of that resource. This means a single diamond ore block could potentially drop up to 4 diamonds instead of the default one. That's a huge boost in earnings.

Of course, even with Fortune, there's some RNG involved. 4 drops aren't guaranteed, but the maximum drop increases the stronger the player's Fortune enchantment is. This is one of the most sought-after enchantments, and for good reason, since getting it early practically guarantees the player will get rich fast.

Fortune has three tiers, and each one increases the yield players can get while mining at that tier. Fortune III is what players will want to get as soon as possible, as it's the enchantment that gives them a chance to earn four pieces of ore while mining an ore block. Make sure you have 30 XP levels before searching for it in the enchanting table's tier 3 slot.

Mending

Fortune and Mending are both excellent enchantments, but Mending has a slight edge over Fortune thanks to its ability to extend the lifespan of any tool in Minecraft. The idea of a pickaxe that never breaks is a dream come true, especially if players have managed to get a pickaxe with plenty of great enchantments and don't want to lose it.

Mending is the enchantment that will protect pickaxes. When applied to any tool, earning XP will automatically refill some durability into the durability bar. This means that as players earn XP, they can keep their tools alive forever with the Mending enchantment.

There is one small catch, though: Mending isn't an enchantment players can earn through the enchanting table. It's one of the in-game enchantments players need to find in the world, either by trading with a villager or by finding it as an enchanted book in a loot chest.