Fabric ships without a mod list and without a settings screen. Mod Menu is the mod that adds both. Put it in your mods folder and you get a Mods button on the title screen, a searchable list of everything Fabric Loader has loaded, and a way into each mod's own settings without opening a single config file by hand.
The short version: drop the jar in .minecraft/mods, launch on the Fabric profile, and the Mods button appears directly below Realms. If it did not appear, the troubleshooting section further down walks through every reason that happens.
Everything in this guide was checked against two builds of the mod, the 1.21.1 build (11.0.4) and the 1.21.11 build (17.0.0). The option names are identical in both, so what you read here should match what is on your screen.
What Mod Menu Does
- Adds a Mods button to the title screen and to the in-game pause menu
- Lists every mod Fabric Loader actually loaded, with version, author, license, and links
- Opens a mod's own config screen in-game, when that mod provides one
- Tags entries with badges: Library, Client, Deprecated, Modpack, Forge
- Search bar that filters on names and on badge keywords
- Checks Modrinth for newer versions of the mods you have installed
- Open Mods Folder and Open Configs Folder buttons, so you stop hunting through file explorers
- Drag a jar onto the mods screen and it offers to copy the file into your mods folder for you
That last one is worth knowing about. You still have to restart the game for the new mod to load, but you skip the trip to %appdata%.
How to Install Mod Menu
- Install Fabric Loader for your Minecraft version and launch the game once on the Fabric profile so the folders get created.
- Download Mod Menu from Modrinth. Pick the file that matches your exact Minecraft version. A 1.21.1 build will not load on 1.21.4.
- Put the
.jarloose in your mods folder, not inside a subfolder:- Windows:
%appdata%\.minecraft\mods - macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/mods - Linux:
~/.minecraft/mods
- Windows:
- While you are on Modrinth, grab Fabric API for the same Minecraft version. Mod Menu can start without it, but nearly every other mod you install cannot.
- Launch Minecraft on the Fabric profile.
If you use Prism, MultiMC, the Modrinth app, or the CurseForge app, each instance has its own mods folder. .minecraft/mods is not where that instance looks. Use the launcher's own "open folder" button instead of guessing.
How to Open Fabric Mod Menu
There are three ways in, and most people only ever find the first one.
From the title screen
The Mods button sits directly below the Realms button. That is the default layout, called Below Realms in the settings. The bottom left corner of the title screen also changes: instead of vanilla's "Modded" line you get a count of how many mods are loaded.
You can change where the button goes. Open Mod Menu, click Mod Menu Options, and look at the Title Screen setting:
| Setting | What you get |
|---|---|
| Below Realms | The default. A full width Mods button under Realms. |
| Replace Realms | Mods takes the Realms slot entirely. |
| Adjacent | Realms shrinks and Mods sits next to it. |
| Icon | A small icon button with no "Mods" text on it. |
From inside a world
Press Escape. By default Mod Menu takes over the pause menu's Feedback or Report Bugs slot, so the Mods button appears where that button used to be. The Game Menu setting controls this: Replace is the default, Insert adds a button without removing anything, and Icon shrinks it to an icon.
This is the answer to the most common follow-up question. You do not have to quit to the title screen to change a mod's settings. Escape, Mods, configure, resume.
With a key bind
Mod Menu registers a key bind called Open Mod Menu. Go to Options, Controls, Key Binds and search for it.
It ships with no key assigned, which is why almost nobody knows it exists. Bind it to something you can reach and you can open the mod list from anywhere, including from inside another mod's screen.
Mod Menu Not Showing Up? Work Through This
Check these in order. The cheap ones are first.
1. You launched vanilla, not Fabric. Open the launcher and confirm the selected profile is the Fabric one. This is the single most common cause and it costs ten seconds to rule out.
2. The jar does not match your Minecraft version. Mod Menu builds are version specific. Fabric Loader will normally throw an error screen at startup rather than launching quietly, so if the game booted fine and the button is just missing, this probably is not it.
3. The file is in the wrong folder, or renamed. It has to be a .jar sitting directly in mods. A file ending in .jar.disabled is deliberately skipped. A jar inside mods/modmenu/ is invisible to the loader. And see the note above about launcher instances having their own mods folders.
4. The button style was changed. If someone set the Title Screen style to Icon, you are looking for a small unlabelled icon, not a button that says Mods. If it was set to Replace Realms, the Mods button is standing exactly where you expect Realms to be. Open config/modmenu.json and check mods_button_style.
5. A modpack turned the buttons off. Mod Menu has two switches that only exist in the config file, not in the in-game options: modify_title_screen and modify_game_menu. Pack authors set these to false to keep their custom menus clean. Open .minecraft/config/modmenu.json, set both to true, and restart.
6. It is a Forge or NeoForge setup. Mod Menu is a Fabric and Quilt mod. It will not load on Forge or NeoForge, and there is no version of it that does.
7. Your Fabric Loader is too old. Each Mod Menu build declares a minimum loader version, and it moves. The 1.21.1 build wants Fabric Loader 0.15.10 or newer; the 1.21.11 build wants 0.17.2 or newer. Rerun the Fabric installer to update the loader without touching your mods.
8. Read the log. Fabric Loader prints the full list of mods it loaded during startup. Open .minecraft/logs/latest.log and search for modmenu. If it is not in that list, the game never saw your file, and the problem is somewhere in steps 1 through 3. If it is in the list and there is still no button, the problem is a setting, so go back to steps 4 and 5.
Mod Menu Dependencies
Modrinth lists two required dependencies for current builds: Fabric API and Text Placeholder API. In practice you rarely have to download either one separately, and the reason is worth understanding.
Open the Mod Menu jar with any zip tool and look inside META-INF/jars. Both builds I checked ship their dependencies nested inside themselves:
fabric-api-basefabric-resource-loader(v0 in the older build, v1 in the newer one)fabric-screen-api-v1fabric-key-binding-api-v1fabric-lifecycle-events-v1placeholder-api
Fabric Loader reads those nested jars and loads them, which is why Mod Menu on its own will usually start on a bare Fabric install with nothing else in the mods folder. Note that it only bundles the handful of Fabric API modules it personally uses, not the whole API. Install the full Fabric API anyway, because the moment you add a second mod you are going to need it.
Cloth Config API is a separate thing and it is not a Mod Menu dependency. Plenty of mods build their settings screens on Cloth Config, and if it is missing, those specific screens fail to open while Mod Menu itself works fine. Grab it from Modrinth if config buttons are misbehaving.
Fabric Mod Config Menu: Why Some Mods Have No Configure Button
Mod Menu does not create settings screens. It only opens screens that mods have registered with it. So a missing Configure button falls into one of four cases.
The mod never registered one. Nothing to open. Its settings live in a file under .minecraft/config, and you edit that file with the game closed. The Open Configs Folder button inside Mod Menu takes you straight there.
The mod needs a config library you do not have. Cloth Config is the usual one. Install it and the button starts working.
The screen exists but crashes on open. Mod Menu shows you the exact message: "Failed to load config screen for <mod>. Report to <mod>, not Mod Menu." Take that literally. The bug is in the other mod, and its issue tracker is one click away in the Links section of its Mod Menu entry.
The buttons were hidden. There is a Config Buttons toggle in Mod Menu Options, and a hidden_configs list in config/modmenu.json that suppresses specific mods. Modpack authors use the second one.
To see everything on your install that has a config screen at once, type configurable into the mod list search bar.
Which Mods Work With Mod Menu
Most popular Fabric mods register a config screen:
- Sodium: graphics settings, accessible through Mod Menu
- Iris: shader settings and pack management
- Lithium: shows version info, no in-game settings needed
- Continuity: connected texture settings
- Zoomify: zoom behavior and keybind settings
- Xaero's Minimap: full minimap configuration
If a mod uses Cloth Config as its config library, it will show up in Mod Menu. If you are still building out a mod list, the best Fabric mods for 2026 is a reasonable starting point.
Reading the Mod List Faster
Once you are past about thirty mods, the list stops being browsable and you need the filters.
Library mods are hidden by default, which is deliberate: mods whose only job is to be a dependency for something else do not need to be in your face. Toggle Libraries in Mod Menu Options to see them.
The search bar matches badge keywords as well as names. These all work:
| Type this | You get |
|---|---|
library or api | Library mods |
clientside | Client only mods |
configurable | Everything with a settings screen |
updates | Mods with an update available |
deprecated | Mods flagged as outdated by their author |
modpack | Anything carrying the Modpack badge |
The update checker queries Modrinth using the hash of each jar, and it will show you the newer version number and a download link on the mod's page. The mod labels this feature experimental in its own UI, so treat a missing update notice as "no information" rather than "you are up to date". You can pick which release channel it watches, release only, release and beta, or everything, under Update Channel.
Mod Menu on Servers
Mod Menu is client-side only. Modrinth marks it as required on the client and unsupported on the server, and that is accurate: it is a menu screen, and a dedicated server does not have menus.
Do not put it in a server's mods folder. A client-only mod on a dedicated server is one of the fastest ways to get a startup crash that looks far more complicated than it is, and it is a pattern worth recognizing in general, see modded server won't start, it's probably a client-side mod.
It is also worth being clear about what the list shows you when you are connected to a server: it shows what your client loaded, not what the server is running. Those two lists overlap but they are not the same thing. To see the server's mods, look at the server's own mods folder or its startup log.
Every player installs it themselves. There is nothing to configure server side.
Settings That Only Exist in the Config File
config/modmenu.json holds a few options that never appear in the in-game menu. If a modpack has changed Mod Menu's behavior in a way you cannot undo through the UI, this is where to look.
| Key | Effect |
|---|---|
modify_title_screen | false removes the Mods button from the title screen |
modify_game_menu | false removes it from the pause menu |
hidden_mods | List of mod IDs to keep out of the mod list |
hidden_configs | List of mod IDs whose Configure button is suppressed |
disable_drag_and_drop | Turns off dropping jars onto the mods screen |
Close the game before editing this file. Mod Menu writes it itself when settings change, so an edit made while the game is running can get thrown away.
The Bottom Line
Install it. It takes ten seconds, it costs you nothing in frame rate, and the first time a mod misbehaves you will want the version numbers it shows you. If the button does not appear, it is almost always the launcher profile, the mods folder, or a pack that set modify_title_screen to false.
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