How to Make a Fence Gate (Fence Door) in Minecraft

A fence gate is 4 sticks and 2 planks of the same wood. On a crafting table, place a stick, a plank and a stick across the top row, then the same again across the middle row; leave the bottom row empty. You get one gate. If you searched for a “fence door,” this is the item you want. Minecraft has no separate fence door; the gate is the door for fences.

The two-second version

1. Turn one log into 4 planks, and two of those planks into 4 sticks.
2. Lay out stick, plank, stick in the top two rows.
3. Place the gate in the gap of your fence line and use it to open or close.

The planks set the color, so oak planks make an oak gate and cherry planks a pink one. Mixing two wood types in one recipe doesn’t work.

How fence gates behave

• It opens away from you. Stand on the inside of your pen when you open it and the gate swings outward, so animals won’t push past you as easily.
• Closed, it’s as tall as a fence. Mobs can’t jump a closed gate, the same as the fence around it.
• Open, it takes no space. Players, animals and minecarts can pass through the full block.
• Only you and redstone open it. Mobs can’t, including villagers, which is why gates work better than doors for animal pens.
• It connects to any fence regardless of wood type, and to walls. Between two stone walls a gate sits a little lower to line up with them.

Gate, door or something else?

Use a fence gate for anything an animal lives behind. A regular wooden door in a fence line looks odd and villagers can wander through it. For a fully mob-proof entrance to a base, an iron door with a button is the better choice, since only redstone opens it.

For horses or wide paths, put two gates side by side. They open independently, so you can open just one for yourself and both when leading animals.

Redstone gates

A powered fence gate opens, and it closes again when the power stops. A lever, button or pressure plate next to it is enough. Hooking several gates to one lever is handy for a cow farm with more than one pen, or for a field from our farming guide. If you want to time or chain them, start with redstone basics.

A detail people miss

Fence gates are flammable and count as fuel: one burns for as long as a plank in a furnace. Not useful often, but if you have a stack of spare gates from a rebuild, that’s a place to put them.