You're standing in a field of square grass, clutching a diamond pickaxe, and you're bored. It happens. You've built the house, you've farmed the cows, and now you want to see the literal underworld. Or maybe you want to skip straight to the end of the world to slay a dragon. To do that, you need to know how to build portal on minecraft environments, but it’s not just about stacking blocks. It’s about not accidentally lighting your wooden house on fire or getting stuck in a dimension of infinite lava because you forgot a flint and steel.
Minecraft isn't just one world. It’s a multiverse.
Honestly, the first time I tried to build a Nether portal, I used cobblestone. It didn't work. I felt like an idiot. But the game doesn't exactly give you a manual, does it? You have to figure out that the purple swirling vortex only likes obsidian. And not just any obsidian—you need at least ten blocks of the stuff. If you're fancy, you use fourteen. But we're efficient here, so we're sticking to the "budget" build.
The Nether Portal: Your Ticket to Literal Heck
The Nether is a nightmare. It’s hot, everything wants to kill you, and the music is unsettling. But you need it. You need those blaze rods for potions and that ancient debris for your gear.
To start, you need obsidian. This is where most people get stuck. You can't just mine it with an iron pickaxe; it’ll just break and give you nothing. You need diamonds. Once you have a diamond pickaxe, go find a lava pool deep underground or on the surface if you’re lucky. Pour a water bucket over the still lava sources. Don’t pour it on flowing lava or you’ll just get useless cobblestone.
The standard frame is a 4x5 rectangle.
Wait.
You don’t actually need the corners. If you’re short on obsidian, just use dirt or cobblestone for the four corner pieces. It looks a bit jank, but it saves you four blocks of mining, and mining obsidian is basically the most boring task in the history of gaming. It takes forever. Once you have your 2x3 opening framed by obsidian, grab your flint and steel. Right-click the bottom of the frame. If you did it right, the center fills with a purple, translucent film that makes a weird wub-wub noise.
The Speedrunner Method (No Diamond Pickaxe Required)
What if I told you that you don't even need diamonds to know how to build portal on minecraft? Speedrunners like Dream or Illumina don't sit around mining for 30 seconds per block. They "cast" the portal.
Basically, you find a lava pool. You place a block of dirt, put water next to it so it flows, and then you use the water to turn individual lava source blocks into obsidian exactly where they need to be. You're basically 3D printing a portal with a bucket. It takes practice. You’ll probably drown yourself or turn the whole lava pool into obsidian by mistake the first three times. But once you nail it, you feel like a god.
Finding and Fixing the End Portal
Now, the End Portal is a whole different beast. You can't just "build" this one in Survival mode. You have to find it.
You’re looking for a Stronghold. To find one, you need Eyes of Ender, which you make by killing Endermen and Blazes. Toss the eye into the air. It’ll float toward the Stronghold. Follow it. Eventually, it’ll dive into the ground. Dig down (but never straight down, that’s Rule One of Minecraft).
Inside the Stronghold, you’ll find a room with a silverfish spawner and a ring of 12 frames hovering over a pit of lava. Most of these frames will be empty. You have to "build" the portal by placing an Eye of Ender in every single frame.
There's a catch, though.
The eyes have to be facing the right way. If you’re in Creative mode trying to build one of these, and it’s not lighting up, it’s because you stood outside the ring while placing the blocks. You have to stand in the middle of the portal and place the frames around you. The "tabs" on the Eye of Ender textures have to point toward the center. If one is sideways, the portal is a dud.
The Myth of the Aether Portal
We have to talk about the Glowstone-shaped elephant in the room. If you’ve spent any time on YouTube, you’ve seen someone build a portal out of Glowstone, pour a bucket of water in it, and vanish into a beautiful sky kingdom called the Aether.
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this: it’s fake.
Well, it’s a mod. In the base version of Minecraft (Vanilla), pouring water into a Glowstone frame just results in a wet floor and a sense of disappointment. The Aether is one of the most famous mods in history, but it isn't part of the official game. Mojang did hire the creator of the Aether mod, Brandon "Kingbdogz" Pearce, a few years ago, which led to a lot of rumors that the Aether was finally coming to the game. So far? Nothing. If you want to go to the sky, you're going to have to install Forge or Fabric and download the mod yourself.
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Why Your Portal Might Be "Broken"
Sometimes you build the thing, light it, and nothing happens. Or worse, you go through, and when you try to come back, you're 2,000 blocks away from your base.
- Obstructions: If there’s a torch or a piece of snow inside the 2x3 frame area, the portal won't ignite. Clear it out.
- Dimensions: A Nether portal has to be at least 2x3 on the inside. It can be massive, though. You can build a portal that’s 21x21 if you want to be extra.
- Linking Issues: This is the big one. One block in the Nether equals eight blocks in the Overworld. If you build two portals too close together in the Overworld, they will both link to the same portal in the Nether.
- The "Ghast Problem": A Ghast can spit a fireball at you, miss, and hit your portal. The explosion will extinguish the purple film. If you don't have a flint and steel on you, you are officially stranded in the Nether.
Pro tip: Always keep a fire charge or a flint and steel in a chest right next to your Nether portal. Better yet, hide one under a piece of netherrack nearby. You'll thank me when a Ghast decides to ruin your day and you're stuck in a wasteland with no way home.
Advanced Portal Tech: Breaking Bedrock and Gold Farms
Once you understand the basics of how to build portal on minecraft, you start realizing they are more than just doors. They are mechanics.
Large-scale gold farms work by ticking portals on and off rapidly to force Zombie Piglins to spawn. It’s noisy, it causes lag, and it’s incredibly efficient. Then there's the "roof" of the Nether. If you build a portal high enough, you can actually glitch through the bedrock ceiling. Up there, it’s a flat, infinite void where nothing spawns. It’s the perfect place to build a safe highway system to travel thousands of blocks in seconds.
But be careful. If you build a portal on top of the Nether ceiling and you don't have the materials to build another one, you’re stuck. There is no way back down through the bedrock without using specific glitches involving ender pearls and ladders.
Getting Practical: Your Move
Building a portal is the moment Minecraft changes from a survival game into an adventure.
Don't overthink the obsidian mining. If you find a ruined portal (those half-broken structures scattered around the world), use the "Crying Obsidian" for decoration, but remember it doesn't count toward the functional frame. You need the solid, dark purple-black stuff.
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Go grab two buckets. One for water, one for lava. Find a deep cave. Build your 4x5 frame (skip the corners to save time). Light it up.
Once you’re on the other side, immediately crouch. If the game spawns your portal on a single ledge over a lake of fire, you don't want your first step in the Nether to be your last. Bring cobblestone to build a small hut around your portal. Ghasts can't blow up cobblestone, so it'll keep your exit safe while you go off hunting for fortresses.
The next step is simple: Get in there and start mining quartz for the XP. You’re going to need those levels for the enchantments you’ll need to survive the End. Check your coordinates (F3 on PC) before you leave so you don't get lost. The Nether doesn't forgive mistakes, but it's where the best loot lives.