Though Minecraft has been around for a whopping ten years now, it has still managed to stay relevant, with new players getting involved all of the time. Our best guess as to why it has such staying power is that there are few games out there that allow you as much freedom as this one.
After all, you can pretty much do whatever you like most of the time! It’s not linear in any way, and it doesn’t guide you towards any outcome at any point. However, if you wish to progress through the game in any meaningful way (which is by no means compulsory), you will no doubt end up needing some villagers to work your farm and keep things running for you.
That being said, successfully managing these things can actually add quite a bit of difficulty to the game. All sorts of things can happen; your farm can get ravaged by wild animals, or even other players at times. Worse yet, you can end up getting taken out by marauding mobs pretty easily if you haven’t got your guard up.
All of these events are pretty bad. But for us, what is way worse is when your villagers just seem to randomly disappear for no reason. So, to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you, we decided to put together this little guide on how to keep your villagers as best as possible.
Sure, there will be times that this can’t be avoided, but here’s how to go about making sure it doesn’t happen as often as it could.
Minecraft Villagers Disappeared?.. Here’s How to Keep Villagers in Minecraft
As we mentioned above, there are some rare times when there is just nothing that you can do to stop your villagers disappearing. However, this shouldn’t be happening on a regular basis. To minimize the risk of it happening, here are some tips and tricks to help you out.
1. Make sure that you have enough Walls
The first thing you should be thinking of when it comes to keeping your villagers is making sure that they can’t just walk off whenever they want to. Naturally, some pretty high walls are going to stop that from happening. On top of that, having a protective ring around the place will slow the devastating wave of destruction dealt by mobs.
So, if you want to stop your villagers moving to other villages nearby, make sure that your walls are high enough that they can’t climb over. Though this won’t totally stop the problem, it will reduce the amount of villagers you are losing at the moment.
2. Be wary of Mobs
In Minecraft, there is nearly always something lurking in the dark right around the corner. More worrying yet, sometimes this threat is right below your village in the form of zombies hanging out in the caves underneath you. In this case, the best defense is a good offence.
So, you will have to venture down there every now and then and get them before they begin to pick off your villagers. If you don’t, your villagers are pretty bad at defending themselves, so are very vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.
3. Trade with your Villagers
Before we get into this tip, it has to be noted that this tip really only applies to earlier versions of the game. In these versions, there is a bit of a weird glitch that will make any villager you haven’t traded with simply disappear. By the time you will have read this, we wouldn’t be surprised at all if the glitch hadn’t been fixed by the developers.
But, for now, the safest thing to do is continue trading with villagers as an extra safety measure. In addition to this, it does help to ensure that you are giving them enough food. Every now and then, just hand over some fruit, a carrot, or some honey. This way, they won’t be tempted to search for food elsewhere.
4. Break the Job Block
When your villagers do disappear for a while, it can happen that they will end up getting replaced by a random new villager. Effectively, they will have left their work station empty for so long that this new villager will just steal it.
Weirdly enough, this can happen even if the villager is still alive and well somewhere else within your walls. If this happens and you want to keep your original villager, the trick is to not trade with this new villager. If you do so, the new one will replace the old.
What you need to do instead is make absolutely positive that this imposter is using your original villager’s job block. If they are, you will need to just demolish the job block. Then, don’t replace it until the new villager is unemployed again.
Then, you will have to wait until the original villager is near and then put the job block back again. When you have done this, the original villager should reclaim it again pretty much straight away.
5. Search in really unusual places nearby
Unfortunately, there is no really quick way to do this tip. You may have noticed by now that villagers occasionally do some pretty strange things. For example, it can happen that you will find a group of villagers climbing up steep surfaces and just getting stuck.
Other times, you can even find them dancing in rivers or roaming around freely in the caves. When it comes to villager behavior, the key is to expect them to do strange things at the drop of a hat. So, make sure that you haven’t just looked in the places that “make sense”. These guys are pros at getting themselves into compromising situations.
6. Breeding
To wrap up this guide, here’s a tip that you may not have thought would have an effect on the migration of your villagers whatsoever – breeding. We’re not entirely sure why, but villagers tend to disappear more often if they are not being intentionally partnered up for breeding.
It seems that, if you don’t do this every so often, they will simply just walk off and go to other villages nearby. To combat this, make sure to keep an eye out for when your villagers are in mating mode and breed them every now and then. You don’t need to be super vigilant on this one, but it helps to keep it in mind.
The Last Word
It has to be said that, even after all of this, it is entirely possible for villagers to disappear, never to return. Sometimes they return after a few game days, sometimes they simply disappear into the ether.
One can only assume that the developers will have to fix this issue at some point. Until then, the above steps are all that you can do to give you the best chance of tracking them down.
None of those apply. My villages are walled and all caves sealed off. Yet they somehow disappear. They’re gone long enough for another, then unemployed) villager to steal their workstation. But, they’re still alive somewhere else in the village. (I can tell because I traded them up to a certain level.)
The solution is to NOT trade with the new villager. Instead, make certain they’re using the job block that should belong to your real villager. Then, break the job block. Leave it gone until the usurper turns unemployed again. Then, put it back, preferably at a time when the real villager is nearby. He’ll reclaim it, and all is back to normal.
Villagers can disappear and also never return, too. The village is walled and all caves sealed. Yet, they just disappear, sometimes returning several game-days later, and other times gone forever.
i had many max level librarians selling mending fortune 3 efficiency 5 and they just dissappeared when i died in the void with all my netherite gear, its the most tragic thing i have ever experienced ever in minecraft
Feel like this is a problem the devs need to fix because this happen and breaks farms and books need to enchant
I dont want to actually wall my villagers as I am making a gigantic area, also my house is around 20-25 blocks outside the village and i want to wall it also if I would, I dont have the resources, what do I do?
Simple fence or wall will work as they cannot open gates
This has been happening for months, my Villagers disappear never to return whatever I do, this should be fixed
I fenced off a big, bright and safe villager breeder yet they all disappear, do I need to separate them into personal huts?
I traped my villagers in my house an have a fenced off back yard for them to wander they still disappear
dont trap them in your houses as they need to circulate, eat and chat besides that they will revert to numbskulls if they are locked in for too long.
Well lit, was breeding, was trading, had close work and places beds and still DeShawn plus I had friendly mobs despawn that are named like my jeb_ sheep some turtles that I was breeding now down to one out of 7 and I know my friends aren’t taking them and ik zombies can’t get to them by doubled fences
I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m in 1.15, Minecraft PE, and when I first arrived to my taiga village, there was only 1 villager. The village was close to spawn, and all I did before going there was getting full iron. And just now, my villager disappeared, even with a fence, torches, and looking at every nook and cranny. Someone please help me, since I really don’t want to go into creative. It would defeat the purpose of my world. Help me please.
Yep all my mobs from my farms and all of my Max librarians and farmers (probably about 50 villagers) are gone.
My villages are all underground with iron doors on the main entrance and lots of doors inside the cave, I have extra beds, work stations, etc. They continue to disappear even after I named them dude, bro, man, and guy. I have 5 villages set up full of cured villagers for armor, tools, weapons, farming, and a library. Yesterday, (real time) I had 8 librarians, today only 4. I lost infinity and silk touch enchantment capability. This totally sucks as I have really lost around 20 villagers total now, all cured, named, and fully trained.
Help dudes!
Yesterday I had over 50 villagers when I first logged in and played for less than an hour building something right outside my village which is completely walled off. This morning I logged in and the first thing I went to do was trade with some of the villagers but found I only have 4 left. 40 something villagers all max level just gone. And I’m in peaceful mode so they couldn’t have been killed off.
i don’t think this works in every single world i create I put the villagers underground breed them and trade with them then the next minecraft day there all gone
This doesn’t work in every single world I put my villagers in a 16×16 hole in the ground. it has a roof and is well lit and all my villagers have a job, a bed and are maxed level villagers
Still happening. I have my villagers in a carefully constructed housing system, extra beds, plenty of torches. They have food, I throw stacks of bread at them. I am going to stop playing until they fix this nonsense. Plenty of other games. They’re too busy adding frogs, how about fix what’s broken before you add more broken bs.
Agreed, i lost my thorns 3 villager and my mending villager, both were nessicary for finishing my boots, its bs that they haven’t fixed this, its a problem and its taking away the fun of the game especially since some of our villagers we had to reroll their stock for several hours to get what we wanted and then they disappear…
Yaa Exactly I am also facing the similar Situation. At every Morning I give them plenty of Potatoes Carrots And Bread. But Don’t Know how they Vanishes by their Own.
For safety Ample of Torches , Golems Are their And the House is also packed Everywhere.
But Don’t know why this “Stupid” F..k Is happening.
I am really become Sick of this.
SAME. Just started a new Survival world (not an upgrade, straight 1.18) – spent days getting the spawn village set up and “beefy” for trade etc. All precautions taken – highest level villagers in their own personal trade huts, entire village fenced in with torches to prevent mobs, iron golems naturally spawned, pens of animals and tamed animals. Save & Quit. Go to bed. Wake up. All villagers, golems, and animals gone.
Everywhere I look says this has been happening for about a year and they “fixed” it, but it keeps happening. No suggestions on how to prevent it as a player. And a lot of people indicate that it has happened to them multiple times. What’s the point of long-haul play if you lose progress like this? I don’t want frogs – I want a fix.
Yes Exactly.