How to Create a Custom Texture Pack in Minecraft

Introduction

Minecraft makes it super easy for us to add new textures to the existing blocks in the game. You can add a smiley face on every dirt block, or turn every dirt block into a red-colored block — the possibilities are endless!

Step 1 — Access Your Minecraft Files

1. 1Press Windows + R and type `%appdata%`, then click OK
2. 2Locate the Minecraft folder and open it
3. 3Inside, locate the versions folder
4. 4Choose the version of Minecraft you want to add a texture pack to

Step 2 — Extract the Jar File

1. 1Inside the version folder, find the .jar file with the JAVA logo
2. 2Copy that .jar file to your desktop
3. 3Rename the file to .zip — this converts it into a zip folder
4. 4Right-click on the zip file and choose Extract Here
5. 5A new folder with the version name will appear — open it

Step 3 — Navigate to Textures

1. 1Delete everything in the extracted folder except the assets folder
2. 2Navigate to: assets → minecraft → textures
3. 3You'll see various texture folders: blocks, paintings, misc, etc.

Step 4 — Edit Textures

1. 1Right-click any texture and use Edit with to open it in Paint or Photoshop
2. 2Edit the texture however you like
3. 3Save and overwrite the original file

Step 5 — Create pack.mcmeta

1. 1Go back to the main folder (where the assets folder is)
2. 2Create a new .txt document and save it as `pack.mcmeta` (select "All Files" option)
3. 3Open pack.mcmeta with Notepad++ and paste this code:

   {
     "pack": {
       "pack_format": 4,
       "description": "My Custom Pack"
     }
   }

1. 1Select both the pack.mcmeta file and the assets folder and compress them into a ZIP file

Step 6 — Apply in Minecraft

1. 1Launch Minecraft, start playing, and pause
2. 2Go to Resource Pack options
3. 3Click Open Pack Folder and move your ZIP file there
4. 4Drag it to the right side and click Done