There’s nothing more gut-wrenching in Minecraft than watching your fully enchanted diamond pickaxe or netherite chestplate snap right as you’re mid-way through mining ancient debris. You spent hours gathering resources, enchanting, and repairing it, only to lose it forever because you ran out of XP at the worst possible time. That’s where Mending comes in: this incredibly rare enchantment uses any XP you earn to repair your gear automatically, so you never have to say goodbye to your favorite tools again. If you’ve been struggling to track it down, this guide walks you through exactly how to get mending in minecraft, plus all the tips and tricks to make the process as fast and painless as possible.
How to Get Mending in Minecraft: 3 Legitimate, Cheat-Free Methods
First, let’s get one critical fact out of the way to save you hours of wasted effort. Mending cannot be obtained from a standard enchantment table, no matter how many lapis lazuli or XP levels you spend. It’s classified as a “treasure enchantment,” meaning it only appears as an enchanted book you have to find or trade for, never as a random enchant on a tool or armor piece you put through the table. There are only three 100% legitimate, vanilla-approved ways to get your hands on a Mending book, no mods or cheats required:
Each method has its own pros and cons, and the right one for you depends on your playstyle, how far you are into your survival world, and how much patience you have. For most players, the trading method is far and away the most consistent, but we’ll break down all three in detail so you can pick what works for your run. I’ve used all three methods across dozens of survival worlds, and I usually prioritize trading first these days, but I’ve also gotten lucky with a Mending book from my very first desert temple chest before.
Fastest Method to Unlock Mending for Early Survival Players
Trading with a librarian villager is the only way to get Mending on command, no random luck required, and you can pull it off as soon as you have enough iron to make a single lectern. The process is super simple, even if it takes a little bit of repetition to get the trade you want. First, you’ll need to find an unemployed villager – that’s any regular villager that doesn’t have a job site block near them, usually identifiable by their plain brown clothing. Make sure to trap the villager in a 1x2 enclosed space with a roof and light before you do anything else, to stop them from wandering off or getting killed by creepers overnight.
Once your villager is secured, place a lectern right next to them. Wait a few seconds, and they’ll turn into a librarian, with a new set of white robes and a trade menu. Open the trade menu, and check if they’re offering a Mending enchanted book. If they aren’t, just break the lectern, wait a few seconds for them to lose their librarian job, then place the lectern again to reset their trades. Repeat this process as many times as needed until Mending shows up as one of their trades. It took me about 25 resets to get my last Mending librarian, but I’ve heard of people getting it on their first try too, so your mileage may vary.
Once you see the Mending trade pop up, make sure to complete at least one trade with the librarian to lock the trade in permanently. If you don’t do this, the trade can still reset if you break the lectern later. You can lower the price of the Mending book to as little as 1 emerald and 1 book by curing the librarian after they get infected by a zombie. All you have to do is let a zombie hit them until they turn into a zombie villager, then throw a splash potion of weakness at them and feed them a golden apple. They’ll turn back into a regular villager after a few minutes, and all their trades will be drastically discounted. This is totally worth doing if you plan on buying multiple Mending books for all your gear.
Alternative Methods to Find Mending Without Villager Trading
If you don’t want to deal with trapping and breeding villagers, or you’re playing a world where villages are super rare, there are two other ways to track down Mending. The first is fishing. You can catch enchanted books as random loot when you fish in any open body of water, and Mending is on the list of possible drops. The odds are pretty low if you’re using a regular fishing rod, but you can boost them drastically with the right enchantments. If you go fishing for Mending, prioritize enchanting your rod with Luck of the Sea III first to boost your odds of getting enchanted loot by almost 2%. Adding Lure III will also make fish bite faster, so you get more loot rolls per hour.
Lots of players build simple AFK fish farms to grind for Mending while they’re away from their keyboard. These basic redstone contraptions hold down your right click for you, so you can fish automatically for hours without having to do any work. The downside is that it’s totally random: you could get Mending in 10 minutes, or you could fish for 10 hours and never see it. I tried this method once on a server where villagers were disabled, and it took me almost 12 hours of AFK fishing to get my first Mending book, so it’s definitely not the most reliable option.
The other alternative is looting chests in pre-generated structures. Mending books can spawn in chests in stronghold libraries, dungeon chests, desert temples, jungle temples, woodland mansions, end cities, and ancient cities. Ancient city chests have a 23.2% chance to contain a Mending enchanted book, the highest natural drop rate in the game. The catch is that ancient cities are located deep in the Deep Dark biome, and they’re guarded by the Warden, a super powerful mob that can one-shot most players even with full netherite armor. You don’t have to fight the Warden to loot the chests, though: you can sneak past it by making as little noise as possible, and avoid activating the sculk sensors that alert it to your presence.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hunting for Mending
It’s easy to make small mistakes that cost you hours of progress when you’re trying to get Mending, so let’s cover the most common ones I see new players make all the time. First, don’t overpay for a Mending book. If a librarian is asking for 30 or more emeralds for a single Mending book, don’t waste your resources. Either reset the trades until you get a lower base price, or cure the villager to knock the price down. You should never pay more than 10 emeralds for a Mending book at most, especially if you’re willing to do the zombie cure trick.
Second, don’t forget to secure your Mending librarian once you’ve locked in the trade. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard of players leaving their librarian out in the open, only for a creeper to blow up their house and kill the villager, forcing them to start the entire reset process over again. Build a small, fully lit enclosed space for them with a fence gate or door that only you can get into, and make sure there are no gaps where mobs can get in. Never destroy a lectern once you've locked in a Mending trade, as this will make the librarian lose their job and the trade will disappear permanently.
Third, don’t waste hours grinding XP to use at the enchantment table hoping to get Mending. I already mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating: Mending is a treasure enchantment, and it will never show up on the enchantment table menu, no matter how many levels you have. Save those levels for enchanting your tools and armor with other useful enchantments like Unbreaking, Efficiency, or Protection instead. You can also use any extra XP to repair your gear temporarily until you get Mending.
Finally, don’t ignore the other loot you get while hunting for Mending. If you’re resetting librarian trades, you’ll probably run into other useful enchanted book trades like Unbreaking III, Silk Touch, or Fortune III along the way, and those are worth locking in too. If you’re looting ancient cities, you’ll find tons of other rare loot like echo shards, disc fragments, and enchanted golden apples, so even if you don’t find Mending right away, the trip is still worth it.
Mending is easily one of the most game-changing enchantments in Minecraft, and it’s well worth the time and effort to track down, no matter what your playstyle is. If you’re looking for the most consistent, fastest method, stick to resetting librarian trades until you get a Mending book, and cure the villager to get the lowest possible price. If you hate dealing with villagers, AFK fishing or looting ancient cities are both viable alternatives, even if they take a bit more luck. Now that you know how to get mending in minecraft, you can stop worrying about your favorite tools breaking and focus on building, exploring, and taking on the game’s toughest challenges.