How to Find Diamonds in Minecraft: Best Y Level and Method

Mine at Y -59 with an iron pickaxe or better. Diamond ore generates anywhere from Y 16 down to the bottom of the world at Y -64, and it gets steadily more common the deeper you go. Y -59 is as deep as you can tunnel without bedrock getting in the way. Branch mining at that level is the most reliable method; exploring big deep caves is faster if you’re well equipped.

Press F3 on Java to see your Y coordinate. On Bedrock, turn on “Show coordinates” in the world settings.

Why Y -59

Since the 1.18 world generation update, diamond ore uses a distribution that’s thickest at the very bottom of the world. Bedrock starts appearing at Y -60 and is solid at Y -64, so standing at Y -59 gives you a tunnel at -59 and -58 with very few bedrock bumps in the way.

Diamonds are also less likely to generate where they’d be exposed to air. That’s why you don’t see many diamonds just lying on cave walls, and why digging through solid deepslate works better than it looks like it should.

Lava is the danger. Below about Y -54 on Java, cave pockets and aquifers fill with lava instead of water. Keep a water bucket on your hotbar and never dig the block you’re standing on.

Branch mining

1. Dig a staircase down to Y -59. Don’t dig straight down.
2. Dig a main tunnel, 2 blocks tall, as long as you like.
3. Every few blocks, dig side branches out to both sides, 2 blocks tall and 20 to 30 blocks long.
4. Leave 2 or 3 blocks of solid stone between branches. With 2 blocks between, you see every ore in the gaps; with 3, you mine less stone and miss a little.

Deepslate is slow to mine, so the real bottleneck is your pickaxe. Efficiency enchantments and Haste from a beacon make a big difference. Bring a stack of torches, plenty of food and an empty inventory.

Caving

Deep caves, especially the big open caverns and the deep dark, expose a lot of stone at once. Light them up as you go and look at every wall. It’s faster than branch mining when you find a good cave, but riskier: more mobs, more lava and, in the deep dark, the Warden. Go with iron armor at minimum, a shield and a water bucket.

A Night Vision potion makes cave walls much easier to read.

Use Fortune

Diamond ore drops one diamond without enchantments. Fortune III averages about 2.2 per ore, with up to 4. That’s more than double, so once you have a Fortune pickaxe, it’s worth leaving diamond ore in place until you can come back with it.

Silk Touch gives you the ore block itself, which you can carry home and mine later with Fortune.

Diamonds without mining

• Chests. Buried treasure, desert pyramids, jungle temples, villages, shipwrecks, mineshafts and end cities can contain diamonds. Ancient cities are known for good loot too.
• Villagers. You can’t buy raw diamonds, but toolsmiths, weaponsmiths and armorers sell diamond gear for emeralds. That can save a lot of mining.

What to make first

A diamond pickaxe first, so you can mine obsidian for a Nether portal. Then two more diamonds for an enchanting table. After that, armor and a sword. Diamond gear eventually upgrades to netherite, which needs ancient debris from the Nether.

For more detail on mining in general, including ore distributions for every ore, see the mining guide. If you’re short on iron for your first pickaxe, how to find iron has the best levels.