The /clear Command in Minecraft: Clear an Inventory, Take an Item From Everyone and Count It

How it's written

The shape is /clear <players> <item> <amount>, and all three parts are optional. Typed on its own, /clear empties your own whole inventory.

You need to be an operator (level 2) or have cheats turned on in a single-player world. On a server, you make yourself op from the console with op YourName (explained in the guide to giving op).

It only works on players: with @e or with a mob it gives an error. It clears the inventory, the armor being worn and the offhand, but not the ender chest.

Many tutorials teach /clear Ana minecraft:wool 14 -1, with a “data” number and -1 for “all”. That was up to 1.12: today the color goes in the name (red_wool), there's no “data” and the amount starts at 0. If you copy a command from a video and it fails, it's almost always that.

The ones used most

1. Empty a player's inventory

   /clear Ana takes everything from Ana. To do it to everyone connected, /clear @a: think twice before pressing Enter.

2. Take one item from everyone

   /clear @a minecraft:tnt takes all the TNT from every connected player and leaves the rest. The name is the item ID; if you don't know it, look it up in the list of Minecraft item IDs.

3. Take only a few

   /clear Ana minecraft:diamond 10 takes at most 10 diamonds from her. If she has fewer, it takes all of them without an error.

4. A group of items

   With a game tag after #: /clear @a #minecraft:logs takes all logs, of any wood, and /clear @a #minecraft:wool all wool of any color.

5. Everyone but you

   /clear @a[name=!YourName] empties everyone else. The options in square brackets are the usual selector ones: you have them in the selectors guide.

Count what someone carries without taking it

With amount 0, /clear removes nothing and only counts: /clear Ana minecraft:diamond 0 answers “Found 23 matching item(s) on player Ana”. It's for checking whether someone has brought in something odd without touching their inventory.

With @a it counts the total for everyone: /clear @a minecraft:elytra 0 tells you how many elytra there are on the server among everyone connected.

If they don't have any, the game answers “No items were found on player Ana”. It's not the command failing: they just don't have any.

Charging in a shop or a quest made with commands

The trick in maps and servers with shops and no plugins is to store the count in a scoreboard and only charge if it's enough. First create the scoreboard once: /scoreboard objectives add diamonds dummy.

1. Count

   In a command block or a function: execute as @p store result score @s diamonds run clear @s minecraft:diamond 0. It stores in the scoreboard how many diamonds the nearest player has.

2. Charge and give

   execute as @p[scores={diamonds=10..}] run clear @s minecraft:diamond 10 takes 10 only if they have 10 or more, and after it, with the same condition, the give of what they're buying (chained command blocks (in Spanish) do it in order).

3. If they don't have enough

   With scores={diamonds=..9} you send them a warning with tellraw instead of charging them. That way nobody loses the 7 diamonds they had for not having 10.

From the server console

In the console it goes without the slash and always with the player: clear Ana minecraft:tnt. Without a name it doesn't know whose inventory to empty, because the console isn't a player.

It works even if you're not in, but only on connected players: you can't empty the inventory of someone who isn't on the server with /clear.

If you have EssentialsX

EssentialsX has its own /clearinventory and takes the name “/clear” (it's one of its shortcuts, along with /ci and /clean). So with EssentialsX, /clear @a #minecraft:logs or amount 0 to count may not do what this guide says.

To use the game's, type its prefix: /minecraft:clear @a minecraft:tnt (in the console, minecraft:clear Ana). It always goes to the game's command, whatever plugins you have.

The other EssentialsX commands that come in handy as an admin, in the EssentialsX commands guide.

What /clear doesn't do

It doesn't remove items dropped on the ground: that's /kill @e[type=item] (the /kill guide).

It doesn't save anything: what's cleared doesn't come back. If you want nobody to lose their things when they die, that's not /clear, it's gamerule keep_inventory true (its name since 1.21.11, the gamerules guide).

And to give back something you took by mistake, all you can do is give it again with /give: the /give guide explains how, enchantments and all.

On NapNodes

Minecraft servers run Paper on the latest version, so everything in this guide works. From the panel's “Console” you run any /clear without being connected.

Before a big /clear on a paid server, make a backup in “Backups”: each player's inventory is saved with the world, so if you get it wrong, you go back to how it was. The free server has no backups, so there count first with amount 0.

Frequently asked questions