How to Find Buried Treasure in Minecraft

The quickest way to find buried treasure is to enter your seed in our buried treasure finder, which lists chests near you with coordinates. Without a seed tool, find a buried treasure map in a shipwreck or ocean ruin chest and follow the red X to the beach.

What is buried treasure?

Buried treasure is a hidden chest under the sand of a beach. According to the Minecraft Wiki, it generates on beaches and snowy beaches, and can also appear underwater. In Bedrock Edition, stony shores and mushroom field shores can have it as well, and Bedrock treasure is more common than in Java.

The reward is worth the dig: every chest contains a heart of the sea, the item you need to craft a conduit. The rest of the loot comes from several pools and can include iron and gold ingots, emeralds, diamonds, TNT, prismarine crystals, cooked fish, a water breathing potion, weapons and nautilus armour.

Method 1: use a treasure map

A buried treasure map shows a red X in Java Edition. According to the wiki, you can find one in every shipwreck map chest, and in roughly four of ten ocean ruin chests (about 41.7% in small ruins and 43.5% in big ones). Read the map like this:

• The map shows an outline of land and water; water and swamps look orange and striped.
• When you are far away, your player icon looks small. It grows to normal size as you get close.
• When you reach the area the map covers, it fills in like a normal map.

Two maps can lead to the same chest, so do not be surprised if a treasure is already open.

Method 2: use the chunk rule

In Java Edition, the chest is always at position 9 on both X and Z inside its chunk, facing east. That helps once you have found the right beach: press F3, look at the chunk line to see your position inside the chunk, and dig where both numbers are 9. In Bedrock Edition the position is 8 instead.

The chest is almost always covered by sand or gravel, but on underwater hills it can be under stone, and blocks such as coal ore or diorite can cover it too. If water touches it, the chest generates waterlogged. Bring a shovel, a pickaxe and torches.

Method 3: find it by seed

If you know your seed, you can skip the search. Run /seed in chat, then enter the seed in the buried treasure finder or the seed map. You get the nearest chests with X and Z and a /tp command. On Java you can also confirm with /locate structure minecraft:buried_treasure in a test world.

Treasure positions in our tool come from world generation, so they are predictions. Use the chunk rule above to dig at the exact spot.

What to do with the heart of the sea

You need a heart of the sea and nautilus shells to craft a conduit, which gives underwater breathing, night vision and mining speed in a frame. Our ocean monument finder can help you find the guardians' monument and prismarine for the frame.

Common mistakes

• Digging on any beach. Treasure is rare, so use a map or a seed tool before you dig.
• Ignoring the chunk rule. If you know the chunk, you know the exact column.
• Forgetting Bedrock is different. Position 8 and a higher chance of treasure.

For other structures that give loot, browse the structure finder.