6 Ways You Can Get String in Minecraft

Some items in Minecraft are definitely more useful than others, and string is one of them. It is a part of various crafting recipes and can even make you rich with emeralds. Thankfully, it can be obtained in multiple different ways, which is proof you’ll generally need it more often in your playthrough. So with that said, let’s cover the six best ways to get string inside your Minecraft world.

1. Killing Spiders, Striders and Cats

The most obvious, simplest, and probably the fastest way to get string is by killing spider and cave spider mobs in Minecraft. These monsters can drop up to two strings upon death. But if you’ve got looting enchantment on your sword, you’re likely to get up to five strings per spider kill.

Thanks to mob farms and spider spawners, you can easily make a string farm that produces spiders constantly and keeps killing them automatically. Unlike spider eyes, the string is dropped even if the spider dies from environmental damage, like fire or falling. So with a collection system in place, you can go AFK and get a whole lot of string super fast.

Apart from spiders, you may also kill striders and cats to get a string. Striders drop 2-5 strings upon being slain, and with looting III on the Java edition, you can get up to 8 strings per strider kill. Even though striders drop more string than spiders, finding one can be much more difficult than finding a spider, especially if they’re in the middle of a lava lake. Also, they’re cute, so killing them would be a crime.

Talking about crimes, if you would like to commit a crime in Minecraft, you can kill cats, which have a chance to drop 0-2 strings upon death. This drop chance and quantity are not affected by the looting enchantment.

2. Breaking Cobweb

In case you stumble upon a mineshaft and are in dire need of string, you can get it here quite easily. Yes, you may encounter spider mobs or cave spider spawners, which will spawn the tiny venomous spiders. But you can also safely get string just by breaking cobwebs with a sword.

These non-solid blocks are fairly common inside mineshafts and always drop one string. Keep in mind that you have to use a sword to break them and get string, otherwise, you’ll get nothing if you use anything but shears in Minecraft. In addition, cobwebs naturally generate in a few more places which are:

• Libraries in Strongholds
• Basements of Igloos
• Zombie Villages
• Spider Spawner Rooms in Woodland Mansions

3. Looting Structures

String is one of the common mob drops you can find in loot chests of several Minecraft structures. Check out the table below to see what those structures are, how many string items you can expect, and what chance you have to stumble upon it.

Apart from the chest and suspicious gravel loot, you will also find string as tripwire inside jungle temples. They connect tripwire hooks and trigger traps if you touch them. You do not need any special tools to break them and once you do, the traps will be disabled.

4. Fishing

String is one of the junk items you can get by fishing in Minecraft. You have about a 10% chance to catch a junk item while fishing, and there is about a 4 – 6% chance that item is a string. So, in total, you’ve got about a 0.4-0.6% chance to get a string from fishing, depending on the Minecraft biome you fish in and the game edition you’re playing on.

This is the case for a fishing rod that has no luck of the sea enchantments applied to it. If the fishing rod you’re using has this enchantment, you’re less likely to get string from fishing, as it increases the chance of you obtaining treasure items. No enchantment increases the chance of getting junk items, so fishing is not a reliable way of getting string.

5. Bartering with Piglins

One of many items and blocks piglins can give you while bartering is a string. After you offer them a gold ingot, which you can find or make yourself, they can throw anywhere from 3 to 9 strings at you. There are piglin bartering farms out there as well, so if you are looking to get a lot of different items in one place, that would be a great farm to build.

6. Gifts from Cats

This method of acquiring string also includes cats but is far less violent than the first method. If you tame a cat and let it roam around when you sleep at night, you’ve got a 70% chance to receive a gift from your feline friend when you wake up. One of those gifts can be a piece of string, with a 16.13% chance.

Note: Remember that the cat must not be sitting while you sleep. Also, only sleeping during the nighttime counts, so sleeping during a thunderstorm during the day will not yield any gifts.

Why Do You Need String in Minecraft?

Now that you know all the ways you can get string in-game, let’s talk about why you’d want this resource. String is a pretty important part of various crafting recipes from weapons and tools to decorative and building blocks. We have highlighted some of these recipes right here:

Moreover, the string in itself is a block. You can place it as any other block and it will be barely visible. This can allow you to make your Minecraft house builds or decorations better. For example, you can use string to stop certain plants from growing, like sugar cane or bamboo, so not all of them grow to exactly the same height.

Furthermore, string can stop snow layers from forming, so if you are building high up or in a snowy biome and would like to choose exactly where the snow will be, then you can place string where you don’t want any snow.

String is also used in combination with tripwire hooks to make detection systems for your redstone contraptions. Place two tripwire hooks facing toward each other and add a string in between them. When a mob or player touches the string, the tripwire hooks will send a redstone signal.

Finally, you can also sell string to both fishermen and fletcher villagers to earn emeralds.

So there you have it folks. Now you’re familiar with all the ways you can get string in Minecraft and also how you can use it. As you can assume, it’s one of the most basic and useful items in the game, so try collecting it as soon as possible. Anyway, that’s it for this guide. What is your favorite way of obtaining string? Tell us in the comments below!