How to find buried treasure in Minecraft

One of Minecraft's various generated structures in the Overworld features buried treasure chests, which contain plenty of loot, including exclusive items like hearts of the sea that are necessary for constructing underwater conduits. But how can you find buried treasure in Mojang's sandbox game reliably? There are a few methods to consider that should help you easily track down buried treasure.

At their core, all buried treasure chests in Minecraft are generated in beach biomes or underwater regardless of edition, and they have very specific locations where they'll appear in each in-game chunk. Still, it doesn't hurt to examine the different ways you can track down buried treasure with or without certain items.

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Methods to find buried treasure in Minecraft

The dolphin method

Dolphins can help you track down treasure maps in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

If you're hoping to find a buried treasure or at least a map pointing to it, Minecraft's dolphin mobs might be able to help. When fed raw cod or salmon, a dolphin will help lead you to the nearest shipwreck, ocean ruins, or the buried treasure itself. In both the shipwreck and the ocean ruins, you will also find loot chests that can contain treasure maps to point you toward buried treasure.

The steps below should help you put this method for finding buried treasure in Minecraft to the test:

1. Locate the nearest ocean biome, as long as it isn't a cold ocean or a frozen ocean since dolphins don't spawn in them.
2. Take a swim or jump on a boat and find a nearby dolphin, and kill any nearby cod or salmon mobs on the way to collect raw cod and raw salmon, you'll need them later. You can also use a fishing rod to collect raw cod and salmon if you so choose.
3. Search for a dolphin. Then, feed it any raw cod or salmon you might have. The dolphin should head off in a different direction, so be sure to follow it.
4. From here, the dolphin should lead you to either a shipwreck or underwater ruins, where you can explore and loot hidden chests to collect buried treasure maps. Small ocean ruins will have a 41.7% chance to spawn treasure maps in their loot chests. Larger ruins will have a 43.5% chance of spawning them. Shipwrecks will always have a guaranteed treasure map in the chest found in their map rooms.
5. Additionally, the dolphin may lead you to a location that doesn't contain a shipwreck or underwater ruin. If it does, dig at the location it stops at, and you may be able to find buried treasure directly!

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The /Locate command method

If you have cheats enabled in Minecraft, you can teleport to the nearest buried treasure and dig it up (Image via Mojang)

If you've enabled cheats on your Minecraft world, you can use the command console to determine where to find the closest buried treasure relative to your location. Moreover, you can use the command console to teleport immediately to the spot of the buried treasure to ensure that you can dig it up easily before finding additional buried treasure chests with commands if you'd like.

You can enable cheats on Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition with these steps:

• Java Edition - If you've already created a world without cheats enabled, open your pause menu and select "open to LAN" and then ensure that "Allow Commands" is on before pressing "star LAN world". If you don't have a world yet, create one from the main menu and ensure that the "Allow Commands" toggle is set to on.
• Bedrock Edition - If you haven't made a world yet, tap the Play button on the main menu and opt to create a new world. To the left of the world creation window, click on the Cheats tab and tap the cheats toggle on the right side of the screen to enable them. Then, create your world as usual. If you've made a world already, click on the Play button on the main menu and then the pencil icon next to the world you'd like to enable cheats on. Scroll down the right side of the window, click on the Activate Cheats toggle, and enter your world.

The command for locating structures is standardized across Minecraft Java and Bedrock (Image via Mojang)

Once you've enabled cheats in your Minecraft world, you can open your chat console and enter the following commands to find and teleport to nearby buried treasure immediately:

1. Begin by entering /locate structure buried_treasure which will provide you with coordinates to the closest buried treasure chest relative to your location.
2. Enter /tp X Y Z where the x, y, and z correspond to the coordinates you received with the /locate command. For example, if you received the coordinates 169 ~ -23, you would enter /tp 169 ~ -23. This should teleport you to a location directly above the buried treasure, and all you'll need to do is dig beneath your feet to find it.

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The chunk border method

Chunk borders can be viewed in Minecraft Java to locate buried treasure chests (Image via Mojang)

In Minecraft: Java Edition, it's possible to use a debug keyboard shortcut to view the borders of a world's 16x16-block chunks. Buried treasure chests in Java Edition won't always generate in a beach or ocean chunk, but if they do, you can find them at X: 9, Z: 9 within a chunk's borders. This can help you find the specific location of buried treasure once you have an idea of where a chest might be.

You can use the chunk border method in Minecraft Java with these steps:

1. By either a treasure map or the /locate command, locate the approximate location of where a treasure chest is buried.
2. Press the F3 and G keys at the same time, which will display the borders of the current chunk you're standing in.
3. From one of the borders that have now appeared, you can count out nine blocks horizontally and nine blocks vertically to find the center of the chunk where the treasure chest can be dug up.

It should be noted that with the chunk border method in Minecraft, the F3+G key combination will only show the borders of the current chunk you're standing in. You can easily move to a different chunk and look for the X: 9, Z: 9 coordinate on another for a chance to find even more buried treasure.