- The length of a Minecraft day is 20 minutes in real time.
- Minecraft measures time in ticks. One tick lasts for 0.05 real time seconds. So, one real time second contains 20 in-game ticks.
- Many different events take place in different time in your Minecraft world, such as villager working hours, hostile mob spawning on the surface, etc.
Video game time generally works a lot differently than real time. However, some games do force you to wait in real-time so you can unlock a certain reward or have your new tower built in mobile tower defense games. Minecraft is one such game that uses its own time mechanism for all in-game world events. But have you ever wondered what the length of one Minecraft day actually is? That’s what we will be covering in this guide and also how that translates in terms of in-game ticks.
What is the Length of One Minecraft Day?
There are two main light cycles in the Minecraft world. The first is the day cycle and the second one is the night cycle. Both of them last for more or less 10 real-time minutes.
When talking about a whole Minecraft day, it represents both of these cycles together which is called a daylight cycle. So, one Minecraft day’s length, the time between the sunrise of one and the sunrise of the next day, is 20 minutes in real-time.
With that said, after doing a little bit of maths, if you play Minecraft for one whole hour and don’t skip nights at all, you will have lived 3 whole in-game days, after which our favorite (sarcastically) flying mobs will start to show up during the night.
Key Takeaway:
1. One Minecraft day lasts 20 minutes in terms of real world time.
2. One hour in the real world equals 3 whole days in Minecraft.
3. Spending 100 Minecraft days without skipping the night means 16 hours and 36 minutes in real world.
On the other hand, if you skip the nights by sleeping, you will have played through 6-day cycles. So, to reach the 100-day mark in your world without skipping the nights, you’ll need to play Minecraft for 16.6 hours (16 hours and 36 minutes).
The day cycle lasts a bit longer than the night cycle in Minecraft. You are free to use the bed about 30 seconds after the 10-minute mark, but this time is still considered the day cycle. The night cycle starts at 10 minutes and 50 seconds, soon after which the hostile mobs in Minecraft spawn.
All of these rules change slightly during the rainy weather since rain makes the world a bit darker. Then, you can use the bed earlier and the hostile mobs start to spawn before the start of the night cycle.
Minecraft Time in Game Ticks
Minecraft doesn’t use the minutes and seconds concept though, but another time value called ticks. One tick lasts for 0.05 real-time seconds. In other words, one real-time second contains 20 in-game ticks. Ticks are important because the entire world runs based on them. So, redstone components like redstone repeaters use ticks as well as the “time set” command.
If you would like to use this handy Minecraft command, input one of the offered words (day, noon, night, and midnight with sunrise and sunset on Bedrock edition). However, to be even more precise, you can type in the ticks as well.
Check out the table below for some useful event stamps of one Minecraft day’s length.
Ticks Real Time Description 0 (or 24000 if you’re seeing it as the end of a previous day) At the beginning of the day; Players and villagers wake up and rise from their beds Beginning of the day; Players and villagers wake up and rise from their beds 2000 1 minute and 40 seconds Villagers begin working 9000 7 minutes and 30 seconds Villagers stop working 12000 10 minutes Villagers go to sleep; This time is also achievable by using the /time set sunset command on Bedrock edition 12542 10 minutes and 27 seconds Players can sleep in the clear weather; Undead mobs don’t burn anymore 13188 10 minutes and 59 seconds Hostile mobs can spawn outside in the clear weather 22812 19 minutes After this point, hostile mobs cannot spawn anymore in clear weather 23460 19 minutes and 33 seconds Players can no longer sleep; Undead mobs begin to burn
How to Use a Minecraft Clock
Clock is a craftable and useful item that you can use to tell the time of the day in Minecraft. You can make it by placing four gold ingots in a diamond shape and one redstone dust in the center on the crafting table. Refer to our dedicated guide to making a clock in Minecraft.
You can also find it in chests of ruined portals and shipwreck structures. This item is good to have on you as it shows the time. The most noticeable time stamps it displays are the dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight.
Though you can easily tell where the Sun and Moon are when you’re on the surface, it’s a completely different story underground. There is basically no way to tell what time it is without a clock. That’s why it’s a good idea to have it with you when exploring caves or building an underground dwarven keep. You can even place the clock in an item frame, and it will still show the exact time, which will save one slot of your inventory.
So, that’s pretty much all you need to know about the length of a Minecraft day and how the time’s calculated in ticks. By knowing these pieces of information, you can efficiently manage your time in-game and plan your projects accordingly.
However, would you like the Minecraft day to last longer or perhaps be a little shorter? What is your PB time for playing Minecraft in one go? Let us know in the comments below!
You cannot change the length of an in-game day. But you can freeze the daylight cycle with the gamerule command. This will stop the time and allow you to extend it as much as you want.
Yes, Minecraft does become harder as the days go by in the game. This is because of the local difficulty value. If you spend a lot of time in one place in your world, the difficulty of that area will get higher, making various in-game aspects slightly more challenging.
