How to make a Copper Golem and sort items with it

The Copper Golem is a small helper added in Java Edition 1.21.9 (The Copper Age drop, September 2025). It takes items out of Copper Chests and carries them to chests that already hold the same item, which gives you a sorting system with no redstone. Its rules are unchanged up to 26.3, which only added copper golem statues to a new structure.

Place a Block of Copper (9 Copper Ingots), then put a Carved Pumpkin or a Jack o'Lantern on top of it. The pumpkin must be the last block placed, whether by you, a Dispenser or an Enderman. The Block of Copper turns into a Copper Chest and the golem appears above it.

• Any oxidation stage works: the golem and its chest start at the same stage as the block.
• A waxed block works too, but the golem and the chest come out unwaxed.
• The golem has 12 health points, takes no fall damage and opens doors, except iron ones. In water it sinks and walks on the bottom without drowning.
• If it dies, it drops 1 to 3 Copper Ingots.

1. With empty hands, it walks to the nearest Copper Chest and takes up to 16 items of the first stack it finds.
2. Holding items, it walks to the nearest Chest or Trapped Chest and opens it.
3. If that chest is empty, or already contains the same item and has room, it puts the items in. Otherwise it tries the next nearest chest.
4. After 10 chests without success, it wanders for 7 seconds, forgets the chests it tried and starts again.

Each chest visit takes about 3 seconds. The golem looks for chests up to 32 blocks away horizontally and 8 blocks vertically, but it can only open a chest that is at most 1 block above or 2 blocks below its feet. It ignores Barrels, Ender Chests, Shulker Boxes, the Minecart with Chest and items lying on the ground.

It only compares item types. Enchantments, durability and custom names do not matter, and in Java Edition it cannot tell Potions, Tipped Arrows or Suspicious Stews apart. To take an item back from a golem, use it with an empty hand: the item drops.

1. Use the Copper Chest made with the golem as your input. Fill it by hand, or run a Hopper into it from a farm.
2. Place regular chests on the same floor level, a few blocks away. Keep the space above each chest free so it can open.
3. Label each chest with one item: one Cobblestone, one Sand, one Wheat Seeds, and so on. From now on, that chest receives this item.
4. Add one empty chest as overflow and place it further away than the others. An empty chest accepts anything, and the golem always checks the nearest chests first.
5. Wall the room in so the golem stays close, and keep walkways at least one block wide.

Plan about 10 destination chests per golem, since it gives up after 10 tries. For larger storage, build more golems: two golems never open the same chest at the same time. You can add input points too: a Copper Chest is crafted with 8 Copper Ingots around a Chest, and you need a Stone Pickaxe or better to pick one up. The setup works for any farm that ends in a chest, such as an iron farm.

An unwaxed golem goes through four stages, like copper blocks: unoxidized, exposed, weathered and oxidized. Each step takes 7 hours to 7 hours 40 minutes of game time (21 to 23 Minecraft days), so a new golem is fully oxidized after about 21 to 23 hours. The timer runs on the world's game time, so it keeps counting while you are away.

Once fully oxidized, an unwaxed golem turns into a Copper Golem Statue within seconds (8.6 seconds on average). It has to stand fully in air: it cannot turn into a statue under water or while standing on a slab. It drops the items it carries, and keeps the name you gave it with a Name Tag.

Wax the golem at the color you like, right after building it if you want it to stay bright orange. Copper Chests follow the same rules, but you must sneak while using the axe on one. The golem uses Copper Chests at any oxidation stage, waxed or not.

A Copper Golem Statue is a block. Use it to cycle through four poses: standing, sitting, running and star. A Redstone Comparator reads a different signal for each pose, and the statue keeps its pose when you break it (a pickaxe is fastest). Pistons break it.

To bring the golem back, use an axe on the statue. Each use removes one oxidation stage. Once the statue is unoxidized, one more use turns it into a living, unoxidized and unwaxed Copper Golem, so a fully oxidized statue needs four axe uses. A Honeycomb on a statue waxes it, so its color stops changing.

Since 26.3, Oxidized Copper Golem Statues and oxidized Copper Chests also generate in abandoned camps, the small tent camps of the Overworld. Scrape the statue back to life to get a golem without spending a Block of Copper.

Iron Golems sometimes hold out a Poppy, as they do for villagers. A Copper Golem nearby can take it and wear it on the rod on its head. The flower is only decorative and does not change how the golem sorts. Use Shears to get it back; it also drops when the golem turns into a statue. Iron golems appear where enough villagers live, so you see this in villages or near a villager breeder.

The same drop added copper tools and armor, the Copper Torch, the Copper Lantern, Copper Bars and the Copper Chain. For the flying mount of the previous drop, see how to get and ride a Happy Ghast.