How the Recovery Compass works in Minecraft

Time to retrace your steps.

Image via Mojang

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It can be challenging to track down your items and retrace your steps when you die in Minecraft. You have to lay a good layer of groundwork to make sure you can reliably return to your body, retrieving all of your items to ensure you don’t lose anything. Thankfully, you can use the Recovery Compass to help make it easier. Here’s what you need to know about how the Recovery Compass works in Minecraft.

How to use the Recovery Compass

The Recovery Compass points you in the direction of where you previously died. If you lose all of your items at a particular spot and then die again before retrieving them, your compass will point to the most recent direction. It doesn’t point to every location your character died, which means you want to be careful when attempting to return to your last location.

Unfortunately, if you attempt to use this compass in a different dimension from where you died, it will not work. You will need to be in the same dimension where your character died to narrow down the location, which can be difficult if you’re trying to remember the portal you used to reach that location. Also, when you attempt to use the compass in a different dimension, the needle will spin around, unable to give you a precise location.

Screenshot by DoubleXP

The Recovery Compass is a difficult item to craft. You will need to find eight Echo Shards, which spawn inside chests in Ancient Cities in the Deep Dark biome. After you collect those shards, craft a standard compass and combine them to make the Recovery Compass. The item looks similar to a standard compass but has a light blue luminescent glow.