Removed blocks

This page documents blocks which existed in any of the game's several editions, but are no longer present in the latest version.

For the sake of brevity, this page only documents blocks which were programmed into the game intentionally. There are far more "blocks" which exist as metadata values outside of the expected range, normally inaccessible block state combinations, and other anomalous cases of block data such as non-standard block entity definitions. Due to their tendency to behave differently across editions due to not being intended, said cases can be found within the individual sections below.

A joke block, completely unrelated to the current ability to lock chests via NBT.

The shrub was an unused plant block. While visually identical to the dead bush in most aspects, it differs largely in functionality. Its main visual difference arises from it using a random offset, identical to that of grass, ferns, and later flowers.

Unlike the dead bush, which was a separate block and used a separate block ID at the time, the shrub was the default data value variant of the block ID that also hosted grass and ferns, which were respectively metadata values 1 and 2 of the shrub. As such, the shrub inherits much of the functionality of grass and ferns; alongside the aforementioned offset, they also had the same chance to drop wheat seeds upon breaking.

Having been given a unique name, as well as being intentionally programmed to not be tinted unlike all other metadata values of its block ID, it can be assumed that the inclusion of the shrub was intended to a certain degree, although likely only as a prototype of sorts, as the dead bush was included in the same version that added shrubs, and shrubs were unobtainable through normal means whereas the dead bush appeared everywhere. It not being removed in 1.8, as detailed below, strengthens this assertion.

In contrast to almost all other invalid metadata variants of blocks, the shrub was not removed in 14w26a with the switch to block states, and the shrub remained a valid block. (The "green shrub", which refers to blocks with the shrub/grass ID with metadata values exceeding the expected values, were in fact removed, and were not intentionally implemented in the first place, which is why they are not listed on this page.)

The shrub remained until 17w47a, the version in which the Flattening occurred, which merged shrubs into the more well-established dead bush, likely due to shrubs never having been used. The shrub is unique in this aspect, as all other merged block IDs were clear functional variants, and as such is the reason why the shrub is featured on this list.

However, in 2026’s Fall Drop, shrubs are planned to be added back, though acting more like a fungus rather than the dead bush.

Prior to 17w47a, block IDs were stored internally as integer values. As a result, certain removed blocks would end up having their numeric IDs used by another block from a future version. The table below lists all such conversions.

Upon introduction in 0.0.20a, there were 16 different colors of wool, referred to as "cloth" at the time^[1] due to the lack of in-game names until Beta 1.0. The colors of these blocks matched up with the default colors of Paint.NET, as well as generally appearing similar to tertiary RGB colors. Each of these blocks had a unique numeric ID, ranging from 21 to 36.

In the June 24, 2010 build of Infdev, 15 of the 16 different colored cloth blocks were outright removed from the game. Specifically, this referred to IDs 21-34, as well as 36. The remaining ID, 35, belonged to light gray cloth prior to this version. ID 35 was changed to instead have the white cloth texture, ultimately rendering it the actual white cloth block, and removing light gray cloth as a result, despite white cloth technically also being removed in this version due to having ID 36.

In Beta 1.2, colored wool was reimplemented. However, the color scheme was completely different, and coloration was handled via block metadata, rather than defining a new ID for each color. Wool would continue to use metadata (and later block states) to define its color up until the Flattening in 17w47a gave each wool color a unique (albeit non-numeric) block ID again.

The IDs 21-34 and 36 would start to be used with completely different blocks between Beta 1.2 and Beta 1.7, while

None of the removed colors have been named officially, and there seems to be no plan to return any of them to the game.

The following table lists each of the removed wool colors alongside their currently unofficial color names.

A fully animated block, it was inaccessible and had no real use other than decoration. It was later replaced with redstone.

These blocks persistently generated their respective liquid around them and in stacks of 99 in the starting house chest in older versions.

These blocks persistently generated their respective liquid around them and in stacks of 99 in the starting house chest in older versions.

In snapshot 18w09a, all coral blocks had the same texture, colored differently. Because of this, there was only one dead variant needed. By the time of snapshot 18w10a, each color of the coral block had its own unique texture, but would still all die into the same generic dead coral block from the previous snapshot. The generic dead coral block was removed and replaced with dead variants for each color in snapshot 18w10b.

This block, when placed, appeared identical to how grass blocks appear in item form, due to it having been used to store its item model due to the inability to tint items in earlier versions.

This block, when placed, appeared similar to how leaves appear (but noticably darker) in item form, due to it having been used to store its item model due to the inability to tint items in earlier versions.

Smooth stone bricks are a variant of regular stone bricks.^[verify] It had a different name, but the same texture. It could only be obtained through /give or inventory editing.