How long is a Minecraft day?

By Jesse Lennox Updated July 23, 2022

mangrove trees in minecraft tree — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Minecraft gives you ways to know almost everything about your surroundings, from a map showing you the lay of the land to a compass pointing you back toward your spawn. One thing that most tips and tricks guides won’t go over is how long a day is, which is very important since nighttime is when all the most dangerous mods come out to play. You’re always free to make a bed and sleep the night away (assuming an enemy isn’t too close) but if that’s not an option you will want to know how long you have to wait until the sun rises, or how long until it sets so you make sure to get back to your house in time. Here’s exactly how long a Minecraft day is.

How long is a day in Minecraft?

A villager looks at a sunset. — Mojang

One full day and night cycle in Minecraft takes exactly 20 minutes. That comes out to three in game days per real-world hour. Days and nights last equal amounts of time, that being 10 minutes, with the ability to sleep beginning once the time ticks over that 10-minute mark. However, we can get more specific than that because Minecraft does actually have times you can translate to know how long each part of a day lasts.

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Real time	Minecraft time
0:00	Sunrise
0:23	Morning
5:00	Noon
9:41	Sunset
10:28	Sleeping becomes available
10:52	Dusk
11:32	Night begins
15:00	Midnight
18:47	Light on the horizon
19:06	Dawn begins
19:30	Moon sets

While it won’t give you an exact number, you can more easily tell the time in Minecraft by crafting a clock. You can make one on a Crafting Table by placing one Redstone dust in the center square and one Gold Ingot directly above, below, and on either side of it. This can at least let you know when you’re running out of daylight, but at the point where you have the materials to make one, odds are you won’t need a clock anyway.

Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…

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