Daylight cycle

The daylight cycle is a 20-minute-long cycle between two main light settings: day and night.

During the daylight cycle, the sun and moon appear to rotate around the player, appearing directly overhead at midday and midnight, respectively. The sun and moon always remain in the same position relative to the stars, and to each other. Solar eclipses are therefore impossible, and technically the moon would constantly be eclipsed by the world, even though it exhibits phases depending on the number of nights elapsed.

The daylight cycle pauses when the game is paused in the game menu. In multiplayer, time proceeds normally as long as the server is running.

The daylight cycle continues while the player is in the Nether or The End, although the world itself does not change until the Overworld is loaded again. A village created in another dimension observes a normal village schedule.

In Minecraft, time is 72 times faster than normal time. This can be easily calculated as the proportion ¹⁴⁴⁰⁄₂₀ = 72, since there are 1440 minutes (86400 seconds) in a real day (3600sec × 24hr) and 20 minutes (1200 seconds) in a full Minecraft day, assuming the tick speed is maintained at 20 ticks/second. A collection of time unit conversions is listed below:

The approximation of real time to Minecraft time:

In Minecraft, the sun, moon and stars do not move at a linear speed. Given , the number of ticks passed since dawn between 0 and 24000, the sky angle can be calculated as follows:

Vibrant Visuals effects that change with the time of day are calculated through with an offsetted version of the formula above:

Daytime, not including sunset and sunrise, is 10 minutes long.

• Start: 0 ticks (06:00:00.0)
• Mid: 6000 ticks (12:00:00.0)
• End: 12000 ticks (18:00:00.0)

When a player first spawns in singleplayer, the daylight cycle always starts at the beginning of the daytime (0:00). New worlds on multiplayer servers also start at the beginning of the daytime, but the daylight cycle continues regardless of any new players joining.

During the daytime, the sun rises up to its peak in a light blue sky. The exact color of the sky and fog during clear weather depends on the current biome; for example, desert skies are a lighter shade of blue than plains skies. The moon is not visible below the world during daytime in Bedrock Edition.

With Vibrant Visuals, biomes have more unique sky, fog, and cloud colors and sunlight is also colored depending on the biome; scattering and lighting effects are constantly changing during the daylight cycle. This is calculated through linear interpolation between set key frames, with keys using a 0-1 range for the daylight cycle: 0 is noon, 0.25 is sunset, 0.5 midnight, 0.75 sunrise, and 1 is the next noon (see conversion formula). For detailed information about graphical effects changing with the daylight cycle, see Vibrant Visuals/Configurations.

All blocks that are in direct vertical view of the sky receive sunlight at the internal sky light level 15, which is the maximum. Sunlight provides ample light for the growth of saplings and grass blocks. Most undead mobs (including zombies and skeletons) exposed to direct sunlight (and are not in shade, in water, or wearing helmets) are set on fire. Additionally, sunlight renders spiders neutral, unless they are currently chasing a player, and any endermen exposed to sunlight teleport randomly when near the player and randomly become neutral if having been aggressive for at least 30 seconds. For more details see Light § Effects of light.

Sunset is the period between daytime and nighttime, and always lasts 50 seconds.

• Start: 12000 ticks (18:00:00.0)
• End: 13000 ticks (19:00:00.0)

During sunset, the sun descends on the western horizon, and the moon rises on the eastern horizon. The fog near the setting sun turns into a vibrant orange-red, which is a set region of the sky in Java Edition, or the whole horizon while the camera is facing near the sun in Bedrock Edition. Ambient lighting and clouds also turn orange during sunset in Bedrock Edition. With Vibrant Visuals, more different sky and lighting colors are applied depending on the biome. The internal sky light level decreases. Eventually, undead mobs exposed to direct sunlight are set not to burn.

Between dusk and dawn, players may sleep in a bed. In singleplayer mode, doing so advances the daylight cycle to dawn and sets the weather to clear. This also occurs in multiplayer as long as every player online is in a bed simultaneously. Time does not pass for other aspects of the world, however; for example, crops do not grow and furnaces do not cook or smelt as they would when players are awake.

Nighttime lasts 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

• Start: 13000 ticks (19:00:00.0)
• Mid: 18000 ticks (00:00:00.0)
• End: 23000 ticks (05:00:00.0)

During the night, the moon rises to its peak in a pure black sky dotted with small white stars, while the sun isn't visible below the world in Bedrock Edition. The stars appear to move with the moon and can be first seen toward the end of the sunset. Clouds are black and more transparent, and the fog is colored dark blue. Night Vision can increase the brightness and the fog color.

During the nighttime, the world is covered in darkness; the internal sky light level falls to a minimum of 4, which allows hostile mobs to spawn on the surface. The exact duration for which hostile mobs are able to spawn in exposed areas is 13188 ticks.^{[note 1]}

Regardless of the low internal sky light level, crops continue to grow during the night as long as they have sufficient client‌^{[JE only]} or internal‌^{[BE only]} light level, and at least one player is not sleeping to avoid skipping the night.^{[note 2]}

Sunrise is the period between nighttime and daytime, and is the last part of the daylight cycle. It always lasts 50 seconds.

• Start: 23000 ticks (05:00:00.0)
• End: 24000 ticks (06:00:00.0)

During sunrise, the moon sets on the western horizon and the sun rises on the eastern horizon. The same graphical effects are applied to the sky as with sunset, but in reverse.

The internal sky light level increases. Eventually, the effects of sunlight return, dissipating the threat of most hostile mobs.

A clock allows players to determine Minecraft time. A clock is useful while underground where the current day/night cycle is not visible, as they can help the player avoid mistakenly surfacing at night and falling prey to night-spawned mobs on the surface.

Clocks spin randomly in the Nether and the End, because there is no daylight cycle in those dimensions.

If commands are enabled, then it is possible to change the current time with the /time commands, as detailed below. To enable or disable the daylight cycle, use the following command: /gamerule advance_time‌^{[JE only]}/gamerule dodaylightcycle‌^{[BE only]} true|false.

Specific times can be set with the /time set command.

Syntax:

/time set <number|minecraft:day|minecraft:noon|minecraft:night|minecraft:midnight>‌^{[Java Edition only]}
/time set <number|day|noon|sunset|night|midnight|sunrise>‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Examples:

/time set 0 – Sets the time to the beginning of the Minecraft day.

/time set day – Sets the time to 1000.

/time set 12000 – Sets the time to dusk/sunset.

/time set sunrise‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} - Sets the time to 23000.

/time set noon - Sets the time to 6000.

Each day that progresses adds 24000 ticks to the time counter. While each day looks the same, the moon appears in one of eight different phases each night. The phase of the moon can also alter some events in game.

Issues relating to "Daylight cycle" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

• The sun and moon are both visible when standing or flying at a height above the terrain at approximately 1.4× the set render distance.
• The highest value of time that can be set with the /time set command is 2,147,483,647 (2³¹−1; the 32-bit integer limit). This is equivalent to 89478 days and 11647 ticks. A real-time equivalent counting from January 1, 1 CE^{[note 3]} would be December 25, 1581 CE at 11:28:58.8 (or January 1, 1582 CE at 17:28:58.8 if leap years are ignored).
• In A Minecraft Movie, while Steve was resting in his wool house, his narration describes the day as about "20 minutes".
• Using NBT editors, the largest time value that can be set is 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (2⁶³−1; the 64-bit integer limit). After this point, the value overflows to be −2⁶³, at which point the morning and evening horizon swap and the daylight cycle progresses backward. Undead mobs burn at night instead at day. At this time, 384,307,168,202,282 days, 7 hours, 48 minutes and 25.2 Minecraft seconds would have elapsed, or 14,613,851,231 real-life years.

• 👁 Official glow-in-the-dark T-shirt artwork "Survival" featuring the daylight cycle. Made by JINX.
  
  Official glow-in-the-dark T-shirt artwork "Survival" featuring the daylight cycle. Made by JINX.