How does mob despawning work in Minecraft?

Minecraft has different mechanics that make it interesting and fun. Among them is spawning and despawning. When you move around in the game, an algorithm runs under the hood to determine what to load and where to load it. This includes biomes, trees, mobs, hostile mobs, and even rare minerals and loot. You might have also noticed how some mobs disappear after some time.

So how exactly does despawning work in Minecraft? This article discusses how the game decides when to despawn a mob.

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All about mob despawning in Minecraft

The spawn and despawn distance of mobs in Minecraft (Image via Mojang Studios)

There are two versions of Minecraft — Java Edition and Bedrock Edition — and both of them have slightly different rules for despawning entities.

Let’s first take a look at the rules for Java Edition:

• When you are 32 blocks or meters away from a mob for over 30 seconds (10 seconds if the mob is in low light), there is a 2.47% chance of a mob being despawned per second. In other terms, the average time it takes for a mob to despawn when a player is more than 32 blocks away from it is around 40 seconds.
• Different mobs have different despawn rates. For example, when you move 128 blocks away from a mob, it will despawn immediately but fishes have half the despawn distance; if you move 64 blocks away from the fish mob, it will despawn immediately.
• If you are wondering about the wandering traders, they despawn (along with their tamed llamas) after around 40-60 minutes in real time or around two to three in-game days. However, an untamed trader llama (if the trader is killed) will not despawn.
• Mobs such as the ocelot, stray cats, shulkers, withers, ender dragons, and elder guardians do not despawn. Mobs placed on a boat or minecart, have a saddle placed on them, have a name tag, or have been leashed do not despawn as well.

Despawning in Minecraft Bedrock Edition is slightly different. The major difference is the simulation distance set by you. It tells the game how far it needs to load the assets.

For example, mobs will immediately despawn upon being 44 blocks away from the player when the simulation distance is set to 4. When the simulation distance is set to 6, mobs will despawn when the player moves more than 128 blocks away from them. Fishes, on the other hand, will despawn when the nearest player is more than 40 blocks away from it.

Other than that, most of the despawn rules are the same as in Java Edition.