Slab

A slab is a half-height version of its respective block.

Variants

There are 101 variants of slabs:

Obtaining

Crafting

All slabs have the same crafting recipe format, with one block resulting in two slabs each.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Planks, Bamboo Mosaic, stone blocks, brick blocks, Quartz Block, Smooth Quartz, Cut Copper, Wool, or Concrete	666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666

Stonecutting

All slabs except wooden slabs, bamboo mosaic slabs, and wool slabs; can be obtained by stonecutting, at the same rate as with crafting.

Ingredients	Cutting recipe
Stone block, brick block, Quartz Block, Smooth Quartz, Cut Copper, or Concrete	2222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222

Usage

Crafting ingredient

Wooden slabs

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Bamboo Mosaic	Bamboo Slab
Barrel	Any Planks + Any Wooden Slab
Chiseled Bookshelf	Any Planks + Any Wooden Slab
Composter	Any Wooden Slab
Daylight Detector	Glass + Nether Quartz + Any Wooden Slab
Lectern	Any Wooden Slab + Bookshelf

Cut copper slabs

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Unwaxed Chiseled Copper or  Waxed Chiseled Copper	Matching Unwaxed Cut Copper Slab or  Matching Waxed Cut Copper Slab
Waxed Cut Copper Slab	Matching Unwaxed Cut Copper Slab + Honeycomb

Wool slabs

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Cushion	Matching Wool Slab
Wool Slab	Any Wool Slab + Matching Dye

Stone-type/other slabs

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Armor Stand	Stick + Smooth Stone Slab
Chiseled Cinnabar	Cinnabar Slab
Chiseled Deepslate	Cobbled Deepslate Slab
Chiseled Nether Bricks	Nether Brick Slab
Chiseled Polished Blackstone	Polished Blackstone Slab
Chiseled Quartz Block	Quartz Slab
Chiseled Red Sandstone	Red Sandstone Slab
Chiseled Resin Bricks	Resin Brick Slab
Chiseled Sandstone	Sandstone Slab
Chiseled Stone Bricks	Stone Brick Slab
Chiseled Sulfur	Sulfur Slab
Chiseled Tuff	Tuff Slab
Chiseled Tuff Bricks	Tuff Brick Slab
Grindstone	Stick + Stone Slab + Any Planks
Purpur Pillar	Purpur Slab

Placement

Slabs can occupy either the top half or the bottom half of a block, or both:

• Placing a slab on top of a block or on the side of a block in the lower half of the side surface creates a bottom slab.
• Placing a slab on the underside of a block or on the top half of the side surface creates a top slab.
• Placing a top and bottom slab of the same type in the same block creates a double slab block.
• It is possible to place two different kinds of slabs in the same block, but only by pushing one type of slab onto another type of slab which is right next to the world border via a piston.
• When a bottom slab has a top or bottom slab of a different type in the block above it (i.e., with one or two half blocks of air between the two different slabs), placing a slab that matches the one above onto the lower slab causes the slab above to become a double slab. The same behavior also occurs when placing different slabs underneath a top slab.

Slabs cannot be oriented vertically.

Behavior

In Bedrock Edition a single slab (top or bottom) is transparent to light and diffuses sky light, while a double slab is opaque. The empty half of a slab block is also transparent to mobs, unlike other transparent blocks such as fences and glass, which players can see through but mobs cannot.

A bottom placed on top of a hopper is transparent to items; the items fall through the bottom slab into the hopper. Without a hopper attached below, a bottom slab behaves as a solid surface.

Falling block entities (like sand, gravel, and concrete powder) turn into their dropped form if they land on a bottom slab, as when they fall on a torch.

Mobs see a slab as a full block when pathfinding. They can spawn on top slabs and double slabs, but not on bottom slabs. This can be used to prevent mob spawning in certain areas, such as mob farms.

Generally, the top face of top slabs, the bottom face of bottom slabs, and all faces of double slabs are handled as solid blocks. Due to this, blocks that require a solid surface for placement can be placed on these faces.

Double slabs are handled as a single block instead of two different slabs; as such, breaking one destroys the whole block and drops two slabs, as opposed to breaking only one slab within the same block-space. "Double slabs" that are not aligned to the grid (i.e. a bottom slab on top of a top slab) are handled as separate blocks and are broken individually.

Redstone dust placed on a top slab receives signals from redstone dust one block lower and adjacent, but cannot transmit signals down to that block.

Due to the way blast rays propagate from an explosion, bottom slabs provide extremely effective absorption to explosions directly on top of them. In some cases, only the slab is destroyed from a TNT explosion directly on top of it. Explosions from end crystals and creepers are also weakened.

Sneaking reduces the player's hitbox height to 1.5 blocks, allowing the player to fit through such a gap (for example, walking over a bottom slab with one block of air above it, or in a two block high tunnel with an upper slab on the ceiling). A player cannot walk from a block of soul sand directly up to a bottom slab without jumping – this applies not just to soul sand, but to any block ⁷⁄₈ of a block high or shorter, because the maximum step height of the player is 0.6 of a block. The player can walk off a bottom slab while sneaking, because the sneaking prevents falling only when the distance is higher than one half block.

If a single slab is placed in a water source block, or water is placed onto a single slab using a water bucket, the empty half of that slab's block is waterlogged. If a slab is placed in flowing water, a pocket of air is created in the unfilled half of the block. If the player's head is in this pocket, the player can breathe and see as clearly as from an air block. In Java Edition, if a single slab is placed in between two water sources or waterlogged blocks, the slab becomes waterlogged.

A minecart on powered rails is not repelled by a slab, although it is repelled by a slab with a minecart on top.

Block states

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Videos

History

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

Legacy Console Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

Issues

Issues relating to "Slab" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• Any light directed through a slab does not affect any block's light values north of the source.
• Though single slabs in an otherwise flat floor composed of solid blocks are darkened as one would expect, the indented areas created by 2×1 or 2×2 stairs darken less because they have fewer surrounding solid blocks.^[2]
• When water or lava is on top of an upside-down slab, the water-dripping particles appear in midair below the slab instead of from the slab itself. This was fixed in Java Edition 1.13-pre7^[3] but will not be fixed in Bedrock Edition.^[4]
• In 2017, Notch said that he regretted introducing slabs to the game because half blocks unnecessarily double the resolution of the game by adding detail outside of the game's otherwise cubic constraints.^[5]

Gallery

Historical images

• 
  The unimplemented dirt slab
• 
  Slabs can carry redstone signals.
• 
  First image of upside down slabs as shown on Jeb's Twitter
• 
  First image of nether brick slabs as shown on Jeb's Twitter
• 
  First image of waterlogged slabs as shown on Dinnerbone's Twitter
• 
  First image of diorite slabs as shown on LadyAgnes' Twitter
• 
  Light shining through slabs
• 
  Light shining through slabs
• 
  Naturally occurring smooth stone slabs in a butcher shop before the Village and Pillage update
• 
  Naturally occurring smooth stone slabs in a village blacksmith before the Village and Pillage update

In other media

• 
  A target block-like slab at Meet the Mobs
• 
  Dirt path slabs on the 2022 Mob Vote Event

References

External links

• "Taking Inventory: Slab" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, November 3, 2025.