How To Make a Nether Portal in Minecraft

Creating a Nether portal in Minecraft lets you travel between the Overworld and the dangerous Nether realm. Building a Nether portal is the only way to get to the Nether realm, and requires some resources that can be tricky to obtain, especially for newer Minecraft players.

To build a Nether portal, you will need a diamond pickaxe, or better, and also the following materials:

• 10 Obsidian blocks
• Flint and Steel (made from one iron ingot and flint)

1. Mine Obsidian

The frame of a Nether portal is made from Obsidian, so you will need to gather 10 blocks of Obsidian to build the structure. You can often find Obsidian in places where lava flows into water; however, if you cannot find anywhere like that, you can turn lava into Obsidian yourself.

If you’re lucky, you might be able to break a few blocks and easily guide water into the lava, instantly creating tons of Obsidian for you to collect.

Once you have found or created Obsidian, mine at least 10 blocks of it, which will make the frame of your Nether portal.

2. Build the Nether Portal Frame

The first thing you want to do is decide where you want the Nether Portal. When choosing a spot, bear in mind that Pigmen might be able to follow you back through, so don’t build it too close to your home.

To build the frame, you will need to:

• Place 3 obsidian blocks as the base.
• Place 3 obsidian blocks for the top.
• Place 2 obsidian blocks for each side, making sure they connect the top and bottom.
• This forms a 2×3 space in the middle, which you will walk through to enter the Nether.

You can use wood or soil to make building the frame easier, as shown below.

Once you’ve built the Nether portal’s frame, you can build other stuff on or around it, but you might want to activate the portal before doing so.

3. Light the Nether Portal

If you haven’t already, you will want to build flint and steel. To do so, you will need one iron ingot and flint. Once you have your flint and steel, simply walk up to your Nether portal and right-click on any of the Obsidian blocks while you have the flint and steel equipped.

The middle of the Nether portal will become filled with a purple color, which you can then stand in to enter the Nether realm.

4. Turning the Nether Portal Off

If you need to deactivate or move the Nether portal, you simply need to pour a bucket of water over the portal, which will deactivate the portal, leaving just the frame.

If you plan to move the Nether portal completely, you can simply start removing the Obsidian blocks. As soon as the first block is gone, the portal will deactivate, and you can continue gathering the Obsidian to move the portal somewhere else.