Best Enchantments for a Netherite Pickaxe in Minecraft
Friday April 24, 2026
Last updated Friday April 24, 2026
If you just upgraded a diamond pickaxe to netherite, the next question is what to put on it. The short answer: Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Mending, and either Fortune III or Silk Touch. That's the build most Minecraft players run on their main pickaxe, and it holds up across Java and Bedrock in 1.21.
This guide walks through each enchantment, what it actually does at max level, and the couple of rules you need to know before you burn through a stack of experience levels at the table.
Why netherite matters
A netherite pickaxe has 2,031 durability (about 30% more than a diamond pickaxe) and a mining level of 4, which is what lets it break obsidian and ancient debris. It is also immune to fire and lava when dropped on the ground, which quietly matters in the Nether (Minecraft Wiki: Netherite Pickaxe).
One thing that makes netherite specifically worth enchanting is that it can roll Efficiency V directly from the enchanting table. Stone and diamond tools cap at Efficiency IV through the table and need to be combined on an anvil to hit V, but netherite doesn't have that restriction (Minecraft Wiki: Efficiency).
The core four
These are the enchantments worth every XP level. You can stack all of them on one pickaxe.
1. Efficiency V
Efficiency speeds up how fast your pickaxe breaks blocks. Level V is the cap, and on a netherite pickaxe it is night-and-day for strip mining. Paired with a Haste II beacon, Efficiency V is what lets you instant-mine stone and deepslate.
Max level: V. You can roll it on the enchanting table on a netherite tool, or combine two Efficiency IV books on an anvil.
2. Unbreaking III
Unbreaking gives your pickaxe a chance to skip durability damage when you use it. The formula is 1 / (level + 1), so Unbreaking III means each block you mine has a 75% chance of not costing any durability. On average your pickaxe lasts about 4x longer (Minecraft Wiki: Unbreaking).
On a netherite pickaxe, that takes your effective durability from 2,031 to roughly 8,100. In practical terms, you will almost never accidentally break it mid-mining run.
Max level: III.
3. Mending
Mending is the one that makes the pickaxe effectively permanent. Every XP orb you pick up while the pickaxe is in your hand, offhand, or hotbar gets converted into durability — 2 durability per 1 point of XP — until the tool is topped up (Minecraft Wiki: Mending).
Mending is a treasure enchantment, which means it cannot roll from the enchanting table. You get it from:
- Fishing with a rod (the most reliable farm),
- Librarian villager trades (trade with enough unemployed villagers near lecterns until one offers Mending),
- Raid drops from Evokers on Java Edition,
- Chest loot in jungle temples, strongholds, and ancient cities.
Buy or fish a Mending book, then slap it on your pickaxe at an anvil.
Max level: I (single-level enchantment).
4. Fortune III or Silk Touch
This is the fork in the road. You can't have both on the same pickaxe — they are mutually exclusive in vanilla Minecraft.
Fortune III multiplies the drops from ores that drop items directly (coal, diamond, emerald, lapis, redstone, copper, nether quartz, amethyst). Specifically, Fortune III gives a 20% chance each for a 2x, 3x, or 4x multiplier and a 40% chance for no bonus, averaging out to about 2.2x drops per ore (Minecraft Wiki: Fortune). For iron and gold ore (which drop raw ore blocks that you smelt), Fortune has no effect — use Silk Touch or a normal pickaxe there.
Silk Touch makes the block drop itself instead of its normal drop. Essential if you want to move spawners? No — spawners still drop nothing. But Silk Touch is what you need for:
- Diamond ore, emerald ore, and ancient debris as a block
- Glass, ice, coral blocks, sculk, turtle eggs
- Dripstone, budding amethyst (you can't — it never drops, even with Silk Touch), and glowstone with full drops
Most players end up with two pickaxes: a Fortune III netherite for ore farming, and a Silk Touch netherite for building, moving decorative blocks, and hauling ice back home.
Max levels: Fortune III, Silk Touch I.
Optional: Curse of Vanishing
Curse of Vanishing makes the pickaxe disappear when you die instead of dropping. It is technically compatible with everything above, but there is no reason to put it on a pickaxe you care about. Skip it unless you're cursing a trade item for a friend.
Putting it all together
A maxed netherite pickaxe in survival looks like:
| Enchantment | Level | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency | V | Enchanting table (netherite only) or anvil combine |
| Unbreaking | III | Enchanting table or book |
| Mending | I | Fishing, librarian trade, raid drop, chest loot |
| Fortune or Silk Touch | III / I | Enchanting table or book |
That is four enchantments, which fits well under the five-enchantment survival cap on a pickaxe (Minecraft Wiki: Enchanting).
Order of operations at the anvil
The cheapest way to build this pickaxe is to apply enchantments in this order:
- Enchant the pickaxe on a Level 30 enchanting table. You want Efficiency V and Unbreaking III ideally. If the roll is bad, use the pickaxe for a bit and try again on a fresh one.
- Combine with an Efficiency V book on an anvil if the table gave you IV.
- Combine with a Fortune III book (or Silk Touch book).
- Combine with a Mending book last. Mending books from villagers are cheap, so there is no reason to stack them early and pay extra prior-work XP.
Every time you use the anvil, the "prior work" penalty doubles, so getting the cheap stuff on first saves levels.
Bedrock vs. Java notes
All of the enchantments above work identically on Bedrock Edition 1.21. The only differences worth knowing:
- On Bedrock, you cannot combine two enchanted pickaxes on a crafting table the way older Java versions sometimes allowed — use the anvil.
- Raid drops on Bedrock are a little more generous for Mending books than on Java, but villagers are still the fastest route on either platform.
TL;DR
Run Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Mending, and Fortune III on your main netherite pickaxe. Keep a second one with Silk Touch for building and for hauling diamond ore, glass, and ice. Get Mending on both from a librarian and you will never craft another pickaxe again.