Best Pickaxe Enchantments in Minecraft: Fortune or Silk Touch

You have a diamond or netherite pickaxe and a few enchanted books. Efficiency, Unbreaking and Mending are easy picks, but Fortune or Silk Touch is the real question: a pickaxe can carry only one of the two, and the better choice changes from ore to ore. This guide gives a decision for every ore and the blocks that matter, plus axe and shovel notes and the commands a server admin needs, for Java Edition 26.3, the current release since 15 September 2026, and Bedrock Edition 26.60. The 2026 drops did not change how any of these enchantments work.

Quick answer: The best pickaxe enchantments are Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Mending and either Fortune III or Silk Touch. Fortune and Silk Touch exclude each other, so keep two pickaxes. Use Fortune III for diamond, emerald, lapis, redstone, coal, quartz, iron, copper, gold and amethyst: it more than doubles the average drop of most ores. Use Silk Touch for glass, ice, glowstone, sea lanterns, stone and anything else you want back as the block itself. The same set works in Java and Bedrock.

The Best Enchantments for a Pickaxe

Fortune and Silk Touch are the only conflict among pickaxe enchantments, so the other three fit on both pickaxes.

Fortune or Silk Touch: Which Is Better?

Fortune multiplies what an ore drops. On diamond, emerald, coal, iron, gold, copper, lapis, quartz and Nether gold ore, Fortune I gives a 1 in 3 chance of double drops, Fortune II a 25% chance each of double or triple, and Fortune III a 20% chance each of double, triple or quadruple. On average that is 1.33, 1.75 and 2.2 times the normal drop. Fortune never adds a drop where there is none, so an ore still needs the right pickaxe tier, and it does not raise the experience an ore drops.

Silk Touch makes the block drop itself: stone instead of cobblestone, diamond ore instead of a diamond, and no experience. Place such an ore block later and mine it normally, and you get the drops and the experience then. That gives you a trick for long trips: collect ore blocks with Silk Touch, carry them home and mine them there with Fortune III.

For almost every ore, Fortune wins. Silk Touch wins for blocks that only drop themselves with it, and for a few where Fortune pays out less than the block is worth.

Fortune or Silk Touch per Ore and Block

Nether gold ore with Fortune III averages 8.8 nuggets, while one ore block smelted in a furnace gives a gold ingot, worth 9 nuggets, plus some experience from the furnace. The difference is tiny, so mine it with whichever pickaxe is in your hand. Glowstone is the other way around: if you want blocks for lighting, Silk Touch is better, because a crafted block takes 4 dust while Fortune III averages 3.5 per block mined. For dust to brew with, use Fortune.

Blocks Only Silk Touch Can Collect

Without Silk Touch these blocks drop something else, or nothing at all:

• Glass and glass panes, ice, packed ice and blue ice drop nothing.
• Bookshelves drop 3 books, and ender chests drop 8 obsidian.
• Grass blocks, mycelium and podzol drop dirt.
• Bee nests drop nothing and occupied beehives drop an empty hive. With Silk Touch, both keep their bees inside.
• Coral blocks drop dead coral, and coral and coral fans drop nothing.
• Sculk, sculk sensors, sculk catalysts and sculk shriekers drop experience instead of themselves.
• Turtle eggs and amethyst buds drop nothing.

In the 26.4 snapshots, the new brittle ice from the Ice Caves drop can only be collected with Silk Touch as well.

Some blocks never drop, even with Silk Touch: monster spawners, budding amethyst, reinforced deepslate, trial spawners, vaults and frosted ice. An infested block mined with Silk Touch drops the normal stone version, and no silverfish appears.

Efficiency: How Fast Can a Pickaxe Mine?

Efficiency adds the level squared plus 1 to the tool's mining speed when you use the right tool: 2, 5, 10, 17 and 26 for levels I to V. A netherite pickaxe goes from 9 to 35 and a diamond pickaxe from 8 to 34, so Efficiency V makes either one about four times as fast.

The table has a catch: diamond and stone tools only roll up to Efficiency IV there. For Efficiency V on a diamond pickaxe, merge two Efficiency IV books on an anvil or buy a level V book. Upgrading an enchanted diamond pickaxe to netherite on a smithing table keeps all its enchantments.

Some blocks break instantly, with no pause in between. In Java, an Efficiency V diamond or netherite pickaxe with Haste II from a full beacon pyramid breaks stone, andesite, diorite, granite and tuff instantly, and even Efficiency II is enough for netherrack. Deepslate only breaks instantly with Haste levels that need commands. Underwater, mining is five times slower without Aqua Affinity on your helmet, which our armor enchantments guide covers.

Unbreaking and Mending

Unbreaking III gives every block a 75% chance to cost no durability, so a pickaxe lasts four times as long on average. A netherite pickaxe's 2,031 durability then stretches to about 8,100 blocks.

Mending repairs 2 durability for every experience point in the orbs you pick up while the pickaxe is in your main hand or offhand. The XP goes to repairs before it reaches your level bar. A Fortune pickaxe feeds itself while you mine: diamond and emerald ore drop 3 to 7 experience, lapis and quartz 2 to 5, and coal 0 to 2. A Silk Touch pickaxe gets nothing from ores, so it repairs from experience you earn elsewhere, such as a mob farm. Mending also spares you anvil repairs, which raise the prior work penalty.

Axe, Shovel and Hoe

The same rules hold for the other tools: Efficiency V, Unbreaking III and Mending, plus Fortune III or Silk Touch.

• Axe. Silk Touch is the useful one: bookshelves, bee nests with their bees and chiseled bookshelves. Fortune adds little on an axe beyond extra melon slices, up to the cap of 9. For a combat axe, Sharpness V goes on through an anvil in Java, while Bedrock's enchanting table can also roll it.
• Shovel. Silk Touch gives grass blocks, mycelium, podzol and snow blocks, and makes gravel always drop gravel. Fortune III makes gravel always drop flint, against 10% without it.
• Hoe. A hoe is the fast tool for leaves and sculk: Silk Touch collects sculk blocks, and Fortune raises sapling and apple drops from leaves and crop yields such as carrots and potatoes.

Java vs Bedrock: What Changes for Pickaxes

The maximum levels, and the conflict between Fortune and Silk Touch, are the same in both editions.

Where to Get the Books

All five core enchantments come from fishing and from loot chests, and all but Mending come from the enchanting table with 15 bookshelves. Silk Touch has the lowest weight of the pickaxe enchantments there, so the table rarely offers it.

Librarian villagers sell books with any of them at any level. Before discounts, a level I book such as Silk Touch costs 5 to 19 emeralds, Fortune III and Unbreaking III 11 to 45, Efficiency V 17 to 64, and Mending, at double price for a treasure book, 10 to 38. Curing a zombie villager gives a big discount the first time; see our guide to villager prices.

With the Villager Trade Rebalance experiment on, the master librarian's special book depends on the biome: Efficiency III in desert, Silk Touch in snowy, Fortune II in taiga, Unbreaking II in jungle and Mending in swamp villages. Fortune III, Efficiency V and Unbreaking III then come from the table, from merging two books of the level below, or from loot.

To avoid "Too Expensive", pair the books before they go on the pickaxe. Our enchanting guide works through the cheapest anvil order for exactly this pickaxe in its section on enchantment calculators.

Pickaxe Enchantment Commands for Your Server

In Java 26.3, /give creates both finished pickaxes in one line each. It needs operator rights, permission level 2; our OP commands guide explains the levels.

/give @s netherite_pickaxe[enchantments={efficiency:5,fortune:3,unbreaking:3,mending:1}]
/give @s netherite_pickaxe[enchantments={efficiency:5,silk_touch:1,unbreaking:3,mending:1}]

For the other tools, swap the item: netherite_axe or netherite_shovel with silk_touch:1, for example. To hand out a book instead, use /give @s enchanted_book[stored_enchantments={silk_touch:1}]. Guides for 1.20.5 to 1.21.4 wrap the levels in levels:{...}, and older guides use an {Enchantments:[...]} tag; both fail in 26.3. /give also accepts levels above the maximum, and Fortune keeps adding drops above III, so think twice before you hand that out on a server with a shop or an economy.

To enchant the pickaxe in a player's hand, /enchant @s fortune 3 follows the anvil's rules: nothing above the maximum level, no Fortune on a Silk Touch pickaxe, and in Java nothing the pickaxe already has. In a server console, leave out the slash and use the player's name instead of @s, as in give Steve netherite_pickaxe[enchantments={fortune:3}]. Every Space-Node Minecraft server runs on the Pterodactyl panel, and its live console takes these commands without you joining the game.

Bedrock's /give cannot add enchantments. With cheats on, hold the pickaxe in your main hand and run /enchant once per enchantment:

/enchant @s efficiency 5
/enchant @s fortune 3
/enchant @s unbreaking 3
/enchant @s mending

Use silk_touch instead of fortune 3 for the second pickaxe. Bedrock refuses levels above the maximum and conflicting enchantments.

FAQ

What are the best pickaxe enchantments in Minecraft? Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Mending and Fortune III on your main pickaxe, and the same with Silk Touch instead of Fortune on a second one.

What is the best enchantment for a pickaxe? For value, Fortune III, because it more than doubles the average drop of diamonds, emeralds, lapis and most other ores. For speed, Efficiency V.

Is Fortune or Silk Touch better? Fortune for ores, Silk Touch for blocks you want back whole, such as glass, ice, glowstone, sea lanterns, bookshelves and ender chests. That is why you keep both pickaxes.

Can you put Fortune and Silk Touch on the same pickaxe? Not in survival: the anvil drops the conflicting one and /enchant refuses it. In Java, /give can force both, and then Silk Touch takes over on the blocks both affect.

Does Fortune work on ancient debris or iron? Not on ancient debris, which always drops itself. On iron, gold and copper ore it does, because they drop raw metal: Fortune III averages 2.2 raw iron per ore.

What are the best enchantments for a pickaxe in Bedrock? The same five as in Java. Only the commands differ.

Sources

All opened on 3 November 2026:

• Minecraft Wiki, enchantments: Fortune, Silk Touch, Efficiency, Unbreaking, Mending, Enchantment, Enchanted Book
• Minecraft Wiki, tools and mining: Pickaxe, Axe, Shovel, Hoe, Breaking, Instant mining, Haste, Experience, Smithing, Grindstone
• Minecraft Wiki, ores and blocks: Diamond Ore, Emerald Ore, Coal Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Copper Ore, Lapis Lazuli Ore, Redstone Ore, Nether Gold Ore, Nether Quartz Ore, Ancient Debris, Amethyst Cluster, Gilded Blackstone, Glowstone, Sea Lantern, Melon, Bookshelf, Ice, Blue Ice
• Minecraft Wiki, trading: Trading, Villager Trade Rebalance
• Minecraft Wiki, commands and item data: /give, /enchant, Data component format
• Minecraft Wiki, versions: Java Edition 26.1, Java Edition 26.2, Java Edition 26.3, Java Edition 26.4, Bedrock Edition 26.60
• Microsoft Learn: /enchant command for Bedrock, /give command for Bedrock
• Mojang: version manifest