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EnchantmentsBoth · 26.x

Curse of Binding: How to Get Cursed Armor Off

Curse of Binding locks armor in its slot until you die, it breaks or you switch to Creative. Every way out, why a grindstone won't help, and sources.

By minecraft.bd Editorial Team·Updated

Curse of Binding stops you from taking an item out of your armor slot. Once you put it on, it stays on until you die, the item breaks, or you switch to Creative. It works on helmets, chestplates, leggings, boots, elytra, turtle shells, carved pumpkins and mob heads.

Ways out

In survival, your options are limited:

  1. Wait for it to break. Armor with durability eventually wears out. Fighting, taking fall damage or standing in fire speeds this up. Obviously don’t do this with good armor.
  2. Die. The cursed item drops with the rest of your inventory. With keep inventory on (keep_inventory on Java 1.21.11+, keepInventory on Bedrock), you keep it, still equipped and still cursed.
  3. Creative mode or commands. Creative lets you take it off. /item replace on Java or /replaceitem on Bedrock can overwrite the slot.

Once a cursed carved pumpkin or mob head is off your head, placing it as a block and breaking it again clears the curse, so it’s safe to wear afterward. Armor pieces don’t get that escape hatch.

Things that don’t work: a grindstone (keeps curses), the crafting grid repair recipe (keeps curses), or an anvil.

Elytra and pumpkins are the nasty cases. A cursed elytra has durability but only loses it while gliding, and a cursed pumpkin has no durability at all, so in Hardcore it’s on you forever.

Where it comes from

Curse of Binding is a treasure enchantment. It shows up on books and gear from fishing, loot chests in non-village structures, librarian trades, and on Bedrock raid drops. Under the experimental Villager Trade Rebalance, savanna librarians sell it.

It never appears on the enchanting table. That means you’ll mostly run into it on loot you didn’t enchant yourself: check chest armor before putting it on.

Uses

There’s no real benefit to wearing it yourself. The two uses people actually have:

  • Pranks on multiplayer servers. Giving a friend a cursed pumpkin is a Minecraft classic, especially since the pumpkin overlay blocks part of their view.
  • Map making. Adventure maps use it with the /give command to lock players into a costume or gear set.

Its partner curse is Curse of Vanishing, which deletes items when you die. For removing normal enchantments, see how to remove enchantments.

Common questions

How do you remove Curse of Binding?

In survival you can't remove the enchantment itself. The item comes off when you die, when it breaks, or in Creative mode. A cursed carved pumpkin or mob head loses the curse if you place it and break it.

Does a grindstone remove Curse of Binding?

No. A grindstone removes every other enchantment but leaves curses in place.

Sources & verification

Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.

Keep reading

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