How to get rid of water in Minecraft
Clear water with a bucket, placed blocks, a sponge or the fill command, and stop drained pools refilling with a game rule.
Water gets in the way of builds, flooded mines and ocean monuments. How you clear it depends on how much there is, so this guide starts with the quick method and ends with the one that clears a whole region at once.
Checked against Minecraft Java Edition 26.3, October 2026.
Pick a method
Scoop it with a bucket
An empty bucket picks up one water source block each time you use it on one. It does not pick up flowing water, so find the block the water comes from and scoop that first. A pool with two or more source blocks next to each other can refill itself, because a new source forms in the gap you leave. Put a block into each gap as you go instead of leaving it open.
Place blocks over it
Most blocks you place into water simply replace it. Water and seagrass are both on Mojang's list of replaceable blocks, so building a floor or a wall through them works. Kelp is not on that list, so cut it down before you build over it.
Some blocks hold water inside themselves. Slabs, stairs and fences placed in water become waterlogged, and kelp and seagrass always contain water. Placing a block next to them, or running /fill with replace water (below), does not clear that water, because it is part of the block rather than a water block. Break the block to get rid of its water.
Use a sponge
A sponge soaks up nearby water the moment it touches it, then turns into a wet sponge. A sponge can only soak up so much water, and a wet sponge cannot absorb more.
- Place a sponge in or beside the water.
- It takes in the water around it straight away and turns into a wet sponge.
- Break the wet sponge to pick it up.
- Dry it to use it again. Put the wet sponge and any fuel in a furnace, or place the wet sponge in the Nether, where it dries out straight away.
Sponges are not craftable. You find wet sponges in ocean monuments, and elder guardians can drop them.
Clear an area with /fill
Operators can swap every water block in a box for air in one command:
fill <x1> <y1> <z1> <x2> <y2> <z2> air replace waterThe two sets of numbers are opposite corners of the box. Run it in game with the leading slash, standing in the dimension you want to change. Only water blocks inside the box change, so waterlogged blocks, kelp and seagrass keep their water, and nothing is dropped.
By default one command can change up to 32768 blocks. On 1.21.11 and newer that limit is the max_block_modifications game rule, so a larger area needs several commands side by side, or a higher value for that rule. Change game rules on your Minecraft server shows how to set a rule.
Take a backup before you fill a large area. Use the Backups tab so you can roll the world back if the box was wrong.
Stop water coming back
New water sources form between two existing ones, so a drained pool can fill again. On 1.21.11 and newer, the game rule water_source_conversion set to false stops that. The default is true. Rule names were different before 1.21.11, which Change game rules on your Minecraft server explains.
On your server
This is normal survival play and needs no plugin. To make someone an operator for /fill, see Whitelist players and set operators.
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