How to use the Ore Finder
The Ore Finder simulates the game's own ore placement for your seed, chunk by chunk, and shows every diamond, iron, gold, redstone, lapis, emerald, copper and coal deposit with its exact blocks, Y range and size. It also checks each block against the world's terrain and noise caves, so ores the game would remove next to air are not listed and you can tell buried veins from the ones you will see while caving.
- Type or paste your seed, pick Java Edition and your version, then choose the ores to show (diamonds are on by default).
- Zoom in until blocks are at least a pixel wide: deposits appear as coloured squares with their block count, and zooming further shows every single ore block from above.
- Narrow the Y range (or press “Best Y”) to the layer you are mining at, and pick “Fully buried” for strip mining or “Touching a cave” for caving.
- Use “Nearest deposits” to list the closest veins to spawn, the map centre or your own X Y Z, with distance and direction, then click one to copy its coordinates or a /tp command.
How ore generation works
Ores are placed while a chunk is decorated. Each ore feature (for diamonds: a small vein, a medium vein, a rare large vein and a buried vein) gets its own random seed from the world seed, the chunk position and the feature's index, then rolls how many veins to place, where in the chunk and at which height. A vein is a blob of up to 64 blocks built from a short line of overlapping spheres.
Since 1.18 every ore has a height distribution. Diamonds use a triangle from Y -144 to 16, so they get more common the deeper you go, and redstone does the same. Iron has three bands (deep, middle and a huge mountain band above Y 80), gold peaks around Y -16 with an extra band in badlands, and emeralds only generate in mountain biomes.
Why caves change the ores you find
Most 1.18+ ores have an air-exposure discard chance: a diamond block that would touch air is dropped half of the time (always, for the buried batches), and gold and the lower coal band behave the same. The roll only happens for blocks that land in stone, so a vein crossing a cave shifts every later vein in that chunk.
The finder replays that logic against the world's terrain: the density function with cheese, spaghetti and noodle caves, carver caves and ravines, the bedrock floor, the game's surface rules, and the dirt and gravel blobs placed before ores. Flooded caves, lava lakes, geodes and structures are not simulated; deposits that depend on them are labelled Likely instead of Exact, and the popup tells you whether a deposit touches a cave.
Best Y levels in 1.18 and later
Diamonds and redstone: Y -58 is the classic branch-mining level, close to the bottom but above the lava lakes of Y -54 and below. Lapis peaks around Y 0, gold around Y -16, copper around Y 48 and coal around Y 96. Iron is best at Y 16 underground or anywhere high inside mountains.
Before 1.18 the world started at Y 0 and diamonds generated between Y 1 and 16 evenly. Pick your exact version so the map uses the right ore table: the finder supports every Java version from 1.13 to 26.3.
Editions and versions
| Dimension | Overworld |
|---|---|
| Java Edition | 1.13 – 26.3, exact block positions (terrain and noise caves modelled) |
| Bedrock Edition | Java only: Bedrock decorates chunks with a different random generator, so nothing is shown rather than wrong ores |
Questions
Is the Ore Finder accurate?
We compared it block by block with worlds generated by the official Java server (four worlds, about 220,000 ore blocks): 96–99% of the diamond, iron, gold, redstone, lapis, emerald and copper blocks it shows are really there, and it finds 97–100% of them (coal: about 89%). Each deposit is labelled Exact or Likely: exact deposits matched the game 98–100% of the time; likely ones depend on a detail the model approximates, such as a cave wall, the surface or a flooded cave.
Does it work for Bedrock Edition?
No. Bedrock decorates chunks with a different random number generator and no public model reproduces its ore placement, so the finder only shows Java Edition rather than guessing.
What is the best Y level for diamonds?
In 1.18 and later diamonds get more common the deeper you go, so Y -58 to -59 is the best branch-mining level: deep enough for the most diamonds, above most lava lakes. Before 1.18, Y 11 or 12.
Why do some diamonds disappear next to caves?
Since 1.18 most diamond veins drop each block that would touch air with a 50% chance, and the buried batch drops all of them. The finder applies the same rule against the world's terrain, so exposed diamonds you see on the map really are there.
Can I find ancient debris too?
Yes. Switch to the Nether or open the Ancient Debris Finder: it shows every debris block, which in 1.18+ never touches air, with exact Y levels.
Updated · data for Minecraft Java up to 26.3