Desert Temple Finder

What to know about Desert Temples

The essentials, before you start swinging a pickaxe at the floor.

• BiomeDesert Temples only generate in desert biomes. Most sit fully exposed on the sand, but some are half-buried in dunes — so an unusual sand mound on the horizon is often worth investigating.
• Trap layoutThe trap is a single stone pressure plate sitting on a blue terracotta block in the centre of the floor. Nine blocks of TNT are wired up directly underneath it, so stepping on the plate is enough to detonate the lot.
• Chest placementFour loot chests sit at the corners of the buried trap room, roughly 15 blocks beneath the top of the pyramid. Each rolls from its own loot table, so opening all four is genuinely worth it.
• Suspicious sandSince the 1.20 update, a small chamber near the main vault contains a few patches of suspicious sand. Brush them with a brush item for archaeology drops including pottery sherds you won't find elsewhere.
• VersionDesert Temples were added in the 1.3.1 Adventure Update and have been present in every world on every edition since.

How to enter safely

The temple is big, so there's no reason to rush. A careful approach is quicker than a risky one — you'll spend less time replacing destroyed chests.

1. Walk around the outside of the temple to find the buried chamber. A Desert Temple looks like a sandstone pyramid with four orange-clay arms making an X shape on top, each arm ending in a small tower. The hidden chamber sits directly beneath the centre of the X, about 10 blocks down from the top floor. Lap the building once on foot so you know which side gives the easiest dig-in route.
2. Tunnel in from the side, not down through the floor. Drop down 4 to 5 blocks below the temple's top floor and dig a horizontal tunnel inward through the sandstone wall. Entering from the corner avoids the pressure plate entirely and lets you see the blue terracotta block from a safe angle. Tunnelling from above will eventually drop you onto the plate — and a plate-triggered TNT stack one-shots even diamond armour.
3. Break the stone pressure plate the moment you spot the blue centre block. The trap is a single stone pressure plate sat on top of a blue terracotta block in the middle of the floor. Underneath the terracotta sits 9 blocks of TNT wired to detonate the second the plate triggers. Mine the pressure plate first with a pickaxe (it pops off harmlessly) — and only then mess with anything else in the room.
4. Loot the four corner chests once the trap is disarmed. Each chest sits in a corner of the buried room and rolls from its own independent loot table — so all four can independently drop diamonds, emeralds, gold and iron ingots, enchanted books, saddles, iron or gold horse armour, and the occasional enchanted golden apple. Work from the outer edges of the room inward and avoid placing or breaking blocks directly above the centre TNT until you've also extracted the explosives.
5. Mine the nine free TNT blocks once the room is empty. Below the blue terracotta sit 9 TNT blocks wired together. Carefully dig down beside the terracotta (not on top of it) and break each TNT individually with a pickaxe — they drop as items rather than detonating. Nine free TNT in a single trip is a significant haul, normally costing four sand and five gunpowder per block to craft.

What You'll Pull From the Chests

Four chests is a decent haul for what's effectively a 5-minute stop.

Turn it into a full desert run

If there's a desert village nearby, that's your base for the trip — beds, farms, and a built-in safe zone. Pillager outposts in desert biomes are common, so expect to fight some on the way. And a fresh set of nine TNT from a temple is the cheapest way to start an extraction tunnel on a later raid.