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What Is NBT in Minecraft?

NBT (Named Binary Tag) is Minecraft’s typed binary data format. Learn how its tags are structured, how SNBT differs, and why edition and version matter.
WorldMinecraft? Length2 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team

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NBT stands for Named Binary Tag: Minecraft’s typed, tag-based format for representing game data. It is best pictured as a structured tree of values, but the saved data is binary. The readable text used to describe NBT in Java commands is called SNBT; it is not the same as the binary format.

How NBT data is structured

NBT organizes information into tags. A tag has a type, and tags inside a compound also have names. The format includes numeric types—byte, short, int, long, float, and double—along with strings, lists, compounds, and byte, int, and long arrays. A compound groups named tags; a list groups values that share one declared element type.

Imagine a nested data tree: a game object can have named values, and some values can hold further groups or lists. That is a useful way to understand the organization, but the actual representation is typed binary data. In Java Edition files, the root is ordinarily one named tag whose value is a compound.

NBT and SNBT are different

NBT is the binary format. SNBT is a text representation used to write NBT-like values in commands. When a Java command accepts an NBT value, you enter text; that does not mean the saved data is stored in that same text form.

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Java and Bedrock do not use identical NBT formats

Edition and context matter when reading or parsing NBT. The documented differences include byte order, network encoding, and which root-tag forms are allowed.

Context Documented behavior
Java Edition, disk data Numeric values are big-endian. A root file is ordinarily one named tag with a compound root.
Bedrock, disk data Numeric values are little-endian. Lists can be root tags in some cases.
Bedrock, network data Uses a VarInt-oriented representation.
Java Edition, network data Since Java Edition 1.20.2, the root compound name is omitted in this network format. The cited format reference says this change does not affect player or world data files.

These distinctions matter most when software reads or writes saved data or network packets; they are not a reason to assume a command example for one edition works in another.

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How to view or change NBT in Java Edition

Java Edition’s /data command can get, merge, modify, or remove data for a block entity, entity, or command storage. The command reference documents /data as Java Edition exclusive. It does not mean every field on every target can be changed.

  • /data get reads all or part of a target’s data.
  • /data modify changes data at a selected path.
  • Command-supplied values use SNBT text.

For a particular command, check the syntax and constraints for the target and game release rather than assuming that all NBT data is writable.

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Why version matters for command examples

SNBT command syntax can change. Mojang’s Java Edition 1.21.5 release notes describe extensions to the text format for object-like command data, including NBT, and allow integer literals prefixed with 0x for hexadecimal or 0b for binary. Those notes describe that release; check the edition and version a copied command, data pack, or tutorial targets.

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