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Written By
Chris Priestman
Published
9/14/19

How to build hidden doors

Keep your treasures safe from thieves and friends alike!

Let’s say you’ve had a great day adventuring in Minecraft and bagged yourself some sparkly emeralds. Lucky you! Now, where are you putting them for safe keeping? In a pool of lava? Er, please don’t try that.

If you don’t want your treasures to get snatched you should try putting them behind a hidden door. I’m not talking about a dirt wall that has to be punched through and rebuilt every time. No, this is 2019, my friends, not 2009. We can do much better than getting muddy knuckles whenever we want to access our valuables!  

But first, if you’re new to the illusory world of theft prevention, it’s worth starting with the basics. We’ll go through five different methods of creating hidden doors in Minecraft, with the difficulty increasing each time, starting with beginner and working all the way up to magician. Just make sure there are no crooks peering over your shoulder as you read this. IT’S TOP SECRET.

BEGINNER

We start our journey into the world of concealment with a simple question. What do you see in the image below?

Alright, smartypants. Yes, it’s a painting. Everyone’s giving you and your massive brain a round of applause. But don’t get too cocky as this painting is also a doorway. Gotcha! Can’t see it? That’s the whole point. The painting is placed over a hole in the wall that leads into a room. Sneaky!  

You can make your own painting door by following the instructions in the images below.

[1/3] To make a hidden door behind a painting, the first step is to punch a door-shaped hole into a wall.

[2/3] Next, you need to put two signs inside the doorway to hang the painting on. Signs are used as they allow enough room for you to walk through the doorway.

[3/3] Now you just need to hang your painting on the wall so that it covers the hole. You should be able to walk right through the painting as if you were a ghost. Or just someone who doesn’t respect art, I guess.

AMATEUR

There’s one big problem with rooms concealed behind paintings – it’s a well-known trick that Minecraft burglars will quickly figure out. For better protection, you’ll want to step up your security by adding a hidden button that opens a nearby door.

First, create an iron door and put it somewhere it can’t be seen – perhaps behind the painting you just put up (we’re using an iron door as they can’t be opened by simply pushing them).

Next, you need a button that will open the iron door. It also needs to go somewhere out of sight. The video below, by the brilliantly named Mumbo Jumbo, will show you some great hiding places for buttons: behind chests, paintings, banners, armor stands, and even tilled dirt:

Once you’ve got your iron door and button you just need to connect them up. Place a line of redstone dust between them so the button powers the door, and voila! Well, hopefully. Best give it a test run to make sure it works.  

The final step is to hide the trail of redstone dust behind a wall. Otherwise it’ll be very obvious where the button is and the fact that it powers a secret door will be revealed. Done? Now you have a stronghold that’s nearly as impenetrable as Fort Knox. Try to find our precious goods now, you jerks! Actually, best not call hypothetical thieves ‘jerks’. Don’t want to encourage them…

SKILLED (ER, NOT TO IMPLY THE FIRST TWO DIDN’T REQUIRE SKILL TOO)

Let’s spend less time gloating and instead focus on learning how to make a hidden piston door.  

This is where securing your home gets a little trickier as you need to use sticky pistons. But don’t worry! I’ve outlined exactly how to make a hidden piston door in the images below (but here’s a video tutorial if you prefer).

[1/5] Lay out ten piston blocks exactly like this. Create two 2x2 stacks facing each other first. Then put a 1x2 stack next to those to form an L shape. You need two blocks of space between them. Note that the green side is where each piston will extend.

[2/5] Lay out a 1x2 stack of building blocks as shown in this image. I've used gold blocks to make it easier to demonstrate. But if you use the same building blocks as the wall surrounding your doorway it will be hidden.

[3/5] Now build a front wall and ceiling around the piston blocks while leaving a 2x2 hole in the middle. This hole will be the doorway that you can open and close once you're finished.

[4/5] Next, place four redstone repeaters on top of your archway in the exact positions seen in this image. They have to face the same directions as pictured, too – this is very important. Join them up with redstone dust and add levers.

[5/5] Now you can use the levers on either side of your doorway to open and close it. Use the same building blocks for the wall and piston door and it’ll be hard to see exactly where the doorway is when it's closed.

EXPERT

You may have noticed a big issue with the hidden piston door we made above. Yep, the lever gives the whole thing away. You could try hiding it behind an object like we did with the button. But to really hide the piston door better we need to use some advanced redstone circuits.  

A good place to start is Rogue Fox’s guide to making an invisible button for a hidden piston door. The redstone circuit required is simple enough, but it gets more complex when adding a dropper, a hopper, and a redstone comparator. Just make sure you follow the video closely:

If you thought that was too easy, check out Biggs87x’s redstone torch door, which requires many more moving parts working together. Another variation on this idea is docm77’s hidden switch, which cleverly uses a series of armor stands to create a chain reaction that opens an iron door.   

Finally, Mumbo Jumbo returns with a range of hidden entrances you can make. Some work with a piston door while others are entirely new contraptions. Successfully make a few of these and you’ll be a certified redstone expert. Burglars will hate you! Don’t want burglars to hate you? Come on, buddy, that’s not the kind of crowd you should be trying to impress!

MAGICIAN

I know what you’re thinking. How can hidden doors get any more complex? Just ask McMakistein. He’s an Austrian Minecraft player who makes all sorts of ridiculous machines to “blow people’s minds.” That includes the most spectacular hidden doors you’ll probably ever see:

One is built seamlessly into a bookshelf that you open by inserting a missing book. Another makes you feel like a witch as you draw a circle of fire around you to teleport downwards. You can see the first five hidden doors McMakistein made in the video below.

But that’s not even the best of them. More recently, McMakistein made another five doors, some of which are inspired by the world of Harry Potter. His favourite is the stone wall that opens brick by brick, just like the entrance to Diagon Alley. You open it with a magic wand! As someone who’s still suffering from permanent skull damage from trying to access platform 9 and ¾ in real life, I’m most impressed.

Your treasures should never be at risk of being stolen again! Unless the burglar is a regular reader of Minecraft.net and now knows all these tricks. In which case, drat.

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