#What a notch apple actually is
A notch apple is the enchanted golden apple in Minecraft. It looks like a normal golden apple but shimmers with an enchantment glint, and it is the strongest consumable in the game. The nickname comes from Markus Persson, Minecraft's original creator, who went by "Notch." Players also call it the "god apple," and both names point at the same item.
Two different apples get confused here, so it is worth separating them cleanly. The plain golden apple is crafted from an apple and eight gold ingots, and it is still craftable today. The enchanted golden apple, the notch apple, is a different item with a different loot table and much stronger effects. When people ask how to make a notch apple, they almost always mean the enchanted one, and that is the item this page is about.
#Can you still craft a notch apple?
No. This is the honest answer that half the tutorials bury: the crafting recipe was removed from Minecraft in the 1.9 Combat Update, which shipped at the end of February 2016. It is gone in both Java and Bedrock. You can lay gold blocks around an apple in a crafting grid all day and nothing will happen, because the game no longer recognizes that pattern.
So every method that still works is a way around the missing recipe, not a way to craft it in the normal sense. There are four, and the right one depends on what you are playing: a command, the creative inventory, a datapack, or plain survival luck. The next two sections cover all of them.
#The old recipe, and why Mojang pulled it
Before 1.9, the recipe was one apple in the center of the crafting grid surrounded by eight blocks of gold. A block of gold is nine ingots, so a single notch apple cost seventy-two gold ingots plus the apple. Expensive, but trivial once you had a gold farm running.
That was the problem. The enchanted golden apple is the best panic button in the game, and a repeatable recipe meant a well-set-up player could stockpile dozens of them. In survival that erased the tension of a hard fight, and in PvP it turned duels into who-brought-more-god-apples. Making the item loot-only put the reward back behind exploration instead of behind a gold grinder. Whether you agree with the call, that is the reasoning Mojang gave, and it is why the recipe never came back.
| Item | Craftable now? | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Golden apple | Yes | Apple + 8 gold ingots |
| Notch apple (enchanted) | No, removed in 1.9 | Loot, command, creative, or datapack |
Recipe status verified against Minecraft 1.21-era Java and Bedrock. The removal dates back to the 1.9 update in 2016.
#How to actually make one today
Three of the four routes let you conjure a notch apple directly, which is the closest thing to "making" one that current Minecraft allows. Pick by game mode.
1. The /give command
If cheats are on, or you are opped on a server, one command spawns the apple straight into your inventory:
# Java and Bedrock share the same item id
/give @s minecraft:enchanted_golden_apple 1
Swap @s for a player name to hand one to someone else, and change the trailing number for a stack. This is the fastest answer to how to make a notch apple when you control the world or server.
2. Creative mode
In creative, open the inventory, search "enchanted," and drag the apple out. No command, no cost. Useful for building or testing before you drop back into survival.
3. A datapack that restores the recipe
This is the route that genuinely re-adds crafting. Community datapacks, often published under names like "Craftable Notch Apple," restore the pre-1.9 eight-gold-blocks recipe. Installing one is quick:
- Download the datapack
.zip. - Drop it into your world's
datapacksfolder (saves, then the world name, thendatapacks). - Run
/reload, or leave and rejoin the world.
After that, the old recipe works in a normal crafting table again. Datapacks are server-side, so anyone on your world gets the recipe without installing anything themselves. That is the honest "make it craftable" answer, as long as you are comfortable modifying the world.
#Where notch apples come from in survival
On a vanilla survival world with no cheats, the only way to get a notch apple is to find one in generated chest loot. It can appear in:
- Dungeon chests
- Abandoned mineshaft minecart chests
- Desert temple and jungle temple chests
- Stronghold altar chests
- Woodland mansion chests
- Ruined portal chests
- Bastion remnant chests, especially the treasure rooms
The rarity is the whole point of the item now. In most of those structures the odds are in the low single digits per applicable chest, so you can clear a mansion and walk away with nothing. Bastion remnants are the outlier. Their treasure chests carry a much higher chance than anywhere else, which is why bastion running is the standard way players farm notch apples in the current game. If you want one on a survival world and do not want to install anything, a bastion is the trip to plan.
#What a notch apple does when you eat it
The reason it is worth the hunt: the effects dwarf the plain golden apple. Eating a notch apple gives you a large Absorption buff for two minutes, roughly eight extra golden hearts to burn through, plus a strong burst of Regeneration. What sets it apart from the ordinary golden apple is the pair of survival effects it stacks on top: five minutes of Fire Resistance and five minutes of Damage Resistance. The plain golden apple gives you neither.
That combination is why players hoard them for exactly two moments: the fight with a boss like the Wither, where the extra health and damage reduction matter most, and PvP, where a well-timed notch apple can turn a losing exchange. Fire Resistance also makes it a quiet lifesaver in the Nether. Eat one before you dig into a bastion, not after you are already on fire.
#The other notch, and the other Apple
A small number of people who type "notch apple" are not thinking about Minecraft at all. They mean the notch on an Apple laptop, the black cutout at the top of a MacBook screen, and they want to do something with it. Different rabbit hole entirely, but since I build a tool for exactly that, here is the one-line bridge.
The MacBook notch is dead space by default: macOS just routes the menu bar around it. A category of apps turns that strip into a live status area, and yes, you can put a small animated character up there if you want the equivalent of a pet in your menu bar, which I wrote about in the Dynamic Island pet piece. You can also change what the notch shows and how it looks, covered in Dynamic Island customization. That is a Mac software topic, not a Minecraft one, so I will leave it at the link and get out of your survival world.
#Frequently asked questions
Is it possible to craft a notch apple?
Not with a normal crafting table. The recipe was removed in the 1.9 Combat Update in 2016, in both Java and Bedrock. Today you obtain a notch apple as chest loot, spawn one with the /give command, take one from the creative inventory, or install a datapack that restores the old recipe.
Why can't you craft notch apples anymore?
Mojang removed the recipe in 1.9 because it was too strong. With a gold farm, anyone could mass-produce the game's best healing item, which flattened both survival difficulty and PvP. Making it loot-only turned it back into a rare reward.
How rare is a notch apple?
Rare. In survival it only appears as chest loot, and in most structures the chance is in the low single digits per applicable chest. Bastion remnant treasure rooms give the best odds by a wide margin, which is why they are the usual farming target.
Where can I get a notch apple?
From generated chest loot: dungeons, mineshafts, desert and jungle temples, stronghold altars, woodland mansions, ruined portals and bastion remnants. Bastions are the most reliable source. Outside survival you can spawn one with /give or grab it from the creative inventory.
