You need leather, string, and a crafting table to make a backpack
A backpack in Minecraft is not a single item you craft — it is a storage system you build using a combination of blocks and items. The most common backpack setup uses a shulker box, which holds 27 slots of items and can be carried in your inventory. To make one, you need two shulker shells (dropped by shulkers in the End dimension), plus one piece of wood, which you craft into a crafting table first.
If you want a simpler early-game backpack, you can use a bundle instead. Bundles hold up to 64 items total (not 64 stacks, but 64 individual items), weigh less than a shulker box, and require only rabbit hide and string. Both options let you carry more than your regular inventory allows.
Key Takeaways
- A shulker box holds 27 item slots and can be placed in your inventory, making it the most portable storage in Minecraft.
- Shulker boxes require two shulker shells from the End dimension and one wood block, crafted at a crafting table.
- Bundles are lighter and easier to craft early on, needing only rabbit hide and string, but hold fewer total items.
- Both shulker boxes and bundles can be dyed different colors and stacked in your inventory for multiple backpacks.
How to craft a shulker box step by step
First, travel to the End dimension through an End portal. Shulkers are purple creatures that live in end cities and shoot projectiles at you. When you kill a shulker, it drops one or two shulker shells. You need two shells total, so kill at least two shulkers or find one that drops two shells.
Once you have two shulker shells, return to the Overworld and place a crafting table. Open it and put one shulker shell in the top-middle slot, one in the middle-middle slot, and one wood block (any type) in the bottom-middle slot. The shulker box appears in the result slot. Pick it up and place it in your inventory.
You can now place the shulker box on the ground, open it like a chest, and store items inside. When you close it, pick it up by breaking it with your hand or a tool. The box and all its contents go back into your inventory as a single item.
How to craft a bundle for early-game storage
Bundles are faster to make if you do not have access to the End yet. You need six rabbit hide and two string. Rabbit hide drops from rabbits when you kill them — they spawn in forests, meadows, and snowy biomes. String drops from spiders or can be found in abandoned mineshafts and dungeons.
At a crafting table, arrange the materials in a U shape: put rabbit hide in all slots except the center. Put one string in the top-middle slot and one string in the bottom-middle slot. The bundle appears in the result slot. Unlike a shulker box, a bundle does not create a new container — it is an item that holds other items inside it, and you open it from your inventory.
Bundles are useful early on, but they hold fewer items than a shulker box and cannot be dyed. Most players switch to shulker boxes once they reach the End.
Dyeing your backpack different colors
Both shulker boxes and bundles can be dyed. For a shulker box, place it on the ground, then right-click it while holding any dye (cactus green, lapis lazuli, cocoa beans, and so on). The box changes color instantly. For a bundle, place it in a crafting table with one dye in any slot, and the bundle takes on that color.
Dyeing is useful if you want to organize multiple backpacks by color — for example, one red box for tools, one blue box for building blocks, one green box for food. The dye does not affect how much the backpack holds.
Stacking multiple backpacks in your inventory
You can carry more than one shulker box or bundle at the same time. Each shulker box takes up one inventory slot, so you can theoretically carry 36 shulker boxes (filling all 36 slots of your inventory). Each box holds 27 items, giving you 972 total slots of storage while moving around.
Bundles stack differently — you can carry multiple bundles, but each one still takes one slot. The advantage of bundles is that they weigh less in terms of movement speed, so carrying five bundles feels lighter than carrying five shulker boxes, even though both take up five slots.
Many players create a "storage room" at their base and keep shulker boxes organized on shelves or in a larger storage system. They then carry one or two shulker boxes with them when mining or exploring, and swap them out when they get full.
Where to find shulker shells if you do not want to fight
If you want shulker shells without traveling to the End or fighting shulkers, you can find them in end city chests. End cities are large structures that spawn in the End dimension, and they contain loot chests with a small chance of holding shulker shells. This method is slower than killing shulkers directly, but it works if you prefer to avoid combat.
Another option is to use creative mode or commands to give yourself a shulker box, but this only works in single-player worlds where you have cheats turned on. In survival mode on multiplayer servers, you must craft or find the box through normal gameplay.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I put a shulker box inside another shulker box?
No. Shulker boxes cannot be placed inside other shulker boxes or bundles. However, you can place a shulker box on the ground and open it, then open another shulker box in your inventory at the same time, and move items between them by dragging.
What happens to items inside a shulker box if I break it?
The items stay inside. When you break a shulker box, it drops as a single item with all its contents preserved. Pick it up and place it again to access the items inside.
Do bundles or shulker boxes work better for mining?
Shulker boxes are better for mining because they hold more items (27 slots versus 64 total items in a bundle). If you fill a shulker box with stone or ore, you can carry much more before your inventory is full.
Can I dye a shulker box after I have already filled it with items?
Yes. You can dye a shulker box while it contains items. Place it on the ground, right-click it with dye, and the color changes without affecting the contents.