How to Respawn the Ender Dragon in Minecraft: Easy Player Guide

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Summon the dragon with End Crystals or a simple cheat code

Co-authored by Glenn Carreau

Last Updated: October 8, 2025 Fact Checked

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• Respawning with End Crystals
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• Cheat Console (Java)
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• Cheat Console (Bedrock)
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• Video
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• Q&A
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• Tips
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• Warnings

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Do you wish you could battle the ferocious Ender Dragon all over again—or just spawn her in your Minecraft world for the fun of it? In this article, we’ll teach you how to spawn (or re-spawn) an Ender Dragon in Minecraft. You can re-spawn the Ender Dragon naturally by visiting The End and adding End Crystals to the portal there, or you can use cheat commands to spawn the Ender Dragon in a regular world. Whichever method you use, and whether you’re playing Minecraft’s Java or Bedrock edition, we’ve totally got you covered!

How Do You Respawn the Ender Dragon?

• End Crystals method: Create 4 End Crystals. Then, place the crystals on each side of The End’s portal to trigger the dragon respawn.
• Cheat console (Java): Open the cheat console and enter the command: /summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:0}.
• Cheat console (Bedrock): Open the chat window and enter the command: /summon ender_dragon.

Steps

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Respawning the Ender Dragon with End Crystals

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1. 
   1
   Find the Ender Dragon in The End. The dragon lives in a domain called “The End,” the final area in Minecraft’s background story. If you’re playing in Survival Mode, you’ll need to find an existing portal in a stronghold. In Creative Mode, you can build your own portal instead. Regardless of how you reach a portal, you’ll also need 12 Eyes of Ender to activate it.

   • If you plan to make your own End Portal in Creative Mode, you can do it using 12 End Portal blocks and 12 Eyes of Ender.
   • In Survival Mode, once you find an existing End Portal, you’ll need to add an Eye of Ender to each block in the portal’s frame to activate it.
   • Eyes of Ender can be created by combining Ender Pearls with Blaze Rods (which are found by killing Blazes in The Nether).
   • Once you have a working portal, you’ll be transported to The End! Since that area is separate from the rest of Minecraft’s work, it might take a couple of minutes to load.
2. 
   2
   Defeat the Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon is regarded as the final boss of Minecraft, and you must defeat her (Minecraft has officially claimed the dragon to be female) to return to the overworld. You may also want to brush up on some pointers regarding killing the Ender Dragon if you plan on fighting her!
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3. 
   3
   Craft four Eye of Ender. Once the End Dragon is defeated, you can work on respawning her. To do that, you’ll need End Crystals—but you’ll need to do a little work to gather all the crafting ingredients to make them. First, you’ll need 4 Eye of Ender; these can be made in the crafting menu using 1 blaze powder and 1 ender pearl each.

   • Blazes drop blaze rods when killed. Gather at least 2 blaze rods, then deconstruct them in the crafting menu to create blaze powder.
     • Each rod will create 2 blaze powder, and you need 4 total.
   • Ender pearls can be looted from killed endermen (which have a 50% chance of dropping a pearl) or random chests in strongholds. Again, you’ll need to loot 4 pearls in total.
4. 
   4
   Gather four ghast tears. Ghast tears are your second major ingredient for End Crystals—and there’s no crafting involved to get these. Instead, you’ll simply need to find and kill ghasts, which drop 0-1 ghast tears when killed by default.

   • If you have the Looting enchantment, you can increase that maximum by one per level.
   • So, with the Looting III enchantment, you could potentially loot 4 ghast tears from a single ghast!
5. 
   5
   Make or find 28 glass. Finally, you’ll need glass—a total of 28 units. Glass can be crafted as a smelting recipe using sand (or red sand) and any fuel. This includes blocks of coal, blaze rods, charcoal, lava buckets, and any other fuels you might come across in your Minecraft adventures!

   • Glass is generated in ancient cities, and can also be found in a secret room within woodland mansions.
6. 
   6
   Create four End Crystals with your gathered materials. Each End Crystal requires 1 Eye of Ender, 1 ghast tear, and 7 glass to create; combine them using your crafting menu to get a completed crystal. That’s why you’ll need 28 glass, 4 Eye of Ender, and 4 ghast tears in total. Once you have the End Crystals, you’re ready to re-spawn the Ender Dragon!
7. 
   7
   Place the four End Crystals at the edges of the exit portal in The End. Return to the place where you first defeated the Ender Dragon and the portal that allows you to exit The End. Then, place an End Crystal on each side of the portal (there’s a top, bottom, left, and right side). Once placed, the crystals will immediately react and begin to recharge the obsidian pillars.
8. 
   8
   Let the obsidian pillars recharge and spawn the Ender Dragon. Once the End Crystals fully recharge each pillar, the crystals will explode—and the Ender Dragon will respawn, allowing you to fight her all over again!

   • Subsequent Ender Dragon fights will yield 500 XP for each kill, but not additional Ender Dragon eggs.
   • You can’t respawn the dragon by taking the Ender Dragon egg and placing it on the exit portal. This is a very common Minecraft myth.
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Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Using the Cheat Console (Java Edition)

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1. 
   1
   Enable cheats when creating a new Minecraft world. Before you can summon an Ender Dragon via the cheat console in Minecraft Java Edition (which is the original PC-only version), you’ll need to make sure cheats are enabled. If you’re creating a new world, this is super easy to do! Follow this process to set up your world and permanently enable cheats at the same time:

   • Open Minecraft and click Singleplayer at the top of the menu.
   • Select Create New World near the bottom of the window.
   • Click the “Game Mode” box until you see “Creative” listed, enabling Creative Mode.
   • Click the More World Options… button to open a new menu.
   • Finally, click the “Allow Cheats” button until it has “ON” next to it (so it looks like Allow Cheats: ON).
   • Finalize your choices by clicking the Create New World button at the bottom of the window. This will create your new game world with cheats enabled!
2. 
   2
   Enable cheats in your existing Minecraft world, alternatively. If you’re trying to summon an Ender Dragon in an existing Minecraft world but don’t have cheats enabled yet, you’ll need to change your current settings. Note that you can’t enable cheats permanently if you use this method in Java Edition, but you can repeat the steps below whenever you boot up the game and want to use cheats:

   • Press the Pause key (Escape) to open your options menu.
   • Click on the Open to LAN button.
   • Click the “Allow Cheats” button until it says Allow Cheats: ON.
   • Then, click the Start LAN World button at the bottom of the screen. With that, cheats will be enabled!
3. 
   3
   Bring up the cheat console window. Bring up the console. Press the "slash" key / to do so. You should see a text box appear at the bottom of the screen.
4. 
   4
   Enter the command to summon the Ender Dragon. Type in summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:0} and press ↵ Enter. Ensure there’s a space between each of the tilde (~) marks. Additionally, you can summon the Ender Dragon in different “phases,” depending on what you want her to do; just choose one of the following command codes instead:

   • Floating, inactive dragon: summon ender_dragon
   • About to perform a breath attack: summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:7}
   • About to die and drop XP: summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:9}
   • Tame dragon: summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:10}
5. 
   5
   Wait for the Ender Dragon to appear. After a couple of seconds, you should see the Ender Dragon pop up below you; she’ll begin flying around immediately after appearing.

   • The Ender Dragon is hostile in the default phase (0), but she won't attack you if you're playing in Creative Mode.
   • If you switch back to Survival Mode, the Ender Dragon will attack you, thus allowing you to fight her. Keep in mind that you won't receive any achievements for killing her.
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Using the Cheat Console (Bedrock Edition)

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1. 
   1
   Enable cheats when creating a new world in Bedrock Edition. Bedrock is Minecraft’s unified, cross-platform version for PC, consoles, and mobile—so if you’re on a console or mobile device, you’ll definitely want these instructions rather than Java! Luckily, Bedrock is more forgiving in that you can change cheat settings at any time. However, if you’re creating a new world anyway, here’s how to enable cheats:

   • Press Play at the top of the menu, then select Create New.
   • Select Create New World near the top of the screen.
   • Switch to creative mode (optionally) by pressing the Default Game Mode box and selecting “Creative” from the drop-down menu. This will prevent the Ender Dragon from attacking you immediately.
   • Select the “Activate Cheats” switch from the World Options menu on the right side of the screen.
   • Press Continue when prompted, then Create to launch the game.
2. 
   2
   Enable cheats through your settings menu for an existing world. Unlike Java Edition, you can make your changes permanent, even if you’ve already created a world. Open Minecraft, and from the main menu, select the Play button. Find the world you want to edit, and then do the following:

   • Select the Edit button (which looks like a pencil icon) next to your world.
   • Optionally, select the box below Default Game Mode and switch to Creative mode if you don’t want the dragon to attack you right away.
   • Scroll down the Game Settings menu that appears until you see the Cheats section.
   • Enable the Activate Cheats option in the menu to allow cheats in your world.
   • Press the Play button to launch the game with your new settings.
3. 
   3
   Launch your Minecraft game and open the chat console. Opening the chat console (where you can execute cheat codes) is a little different depending on the platform you’re playing Bedrock on—computer, mobile, or console. Press or tap the button corresponding to your platform, as listed below:

   • Computer keyboard: Press the T key
   • Mobile touchscreen: Tap the speech-bubble-shaped “Chat” icon
   • Xbox and PlayStation controllers: Press the D-Pad (right) on your controller
   • Nintendo Switch: Press the right arrow button on your controller
4. 
   4
   Enter the "summon" command into the chat window. Using your keyboard, controller, or on-screen keyboard, type in the cheat code /summon ender_dragon. Then, enter the command, either by pressing the ↵ Enter key or selecting the right-facing arrow on the far-right side of the text box.
5. 
   5
   Wait for the Ender Dragon to appear. You will see the message "Summoned new Ender Dragon" appear in the lower-left corner of the game window to indicate that the Ender Dragon has been summoned. After a couple of seconds, you should see the Ender Dragon pop up below you; she will begin flying around immediately after appearing.

   • The Ender Dragon will be hostile, but she won’t attack if you’re playing in Creative Mode. If you switch back to Survival Mode, she’ll attack, and you’ll be able to fight her.
   • Keep in mind that you won't receive any achievements for killing her this way.
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Community Q&A

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• Question

  How can I make a portal to the end?

  

  Community Answer

  You have to make sure the blocks and eyes are facing the same way. Stand in the center of where you want to build and find a video on how to place them correctly. Then, stand in the middle and place the eyes of ender. you can get those by killing an enderman and blaze. combine the drops and you have an eye of ender. To make a Nether portal, you need 10-14 blocks of obsidian and 0-4 other blocks and flint and steel. Make sure to take a few ender pearls with you because once you defeat the dragon, a tiny one-block portal is there in the sky. Use an enderpearl to get through and you'll be in the end city. There are special banners there and lots of chests that have iron enchanted items.

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• Question

  How do I get a command block?

  

  Community Answer

  You have to have cheats enabled to do this: Open chat and type /give minecraft:command_block.

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• Question

  My dragon isn't spawning despite having cheats on and version 1.12. What do I do?

  

  Community Answer

  Check if you are in peaceful mode. If you are, this would stop the dragon from spawning.

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  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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Video

Tips

• Try flying up into the air before spawning the Ender Dragon when playing Minecraft in Creative Mode. This prevents the dragon from breaking nearby blocks when it swoops and lands.
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• If you’ve enabled cheats and you're on mobile, you can turn mob griefing off. This restricts the Ender Dragon from destroying anything in your Minecraft world.
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Tips from our Readers

The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

• To survive a long fall, make sure you have a water bucket. When you're about to land, drop water to land safely.
• The Ender Dragon still behaves the same as in the end, so don't be surprised if you have 2 copycat dragons.
• When you spawn the Ender Dragon, be careful, because it spawns right in your face and can break blocks.
• If you don't have any Ender pearls, use an elytra or water.

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Warnings

• Avoid spawning an Ender Dragon from a high tower or structure when playing Survival Mode. This prevents the dragon from making your character fall if it gets too close.
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