What is the allay?
The allay is a small flying mob that collects items for you. Hand it something, and it floats around picking up every matching item it can find on the ground, then brings the whole pile back. For anyone tired of sweeping up dropped crops or chasing scattered loot, it is one of the most useful helpers in the game.
It arrived in the 1.19 Wild Update after winning the 2021 mob vote. You cannot craft or breed it, but you can find it locked in cages out in the world and copy it with amethyst, so a single allay can become a whole crew.
In the game it looks like a tiny blue creature about the size of a small bird. It floats rather than walks, gives off a soft glow and a trail of particles, and hums quietly as it moves. It has 10 hearts of health and will never attack you or anything else. Because it flies, it ignores fall damage and can move straight through water and past obstacles that would slow a player down. It also does not despawn once you free it, so you can keep one around for good.
Where to find allays
Allays do not spawn freely in the world. You find them trapped in two structures. The first is the pillager outpost, where one to three allays sit inside dark oak cages around the base of the tower. The second is the woodland mansion, where some rooms hold allays in similar wooden cages.
To free one, break the dark oak fences boxing it in. The allay floats out unharmed and hangs around the spot where you released it until you give it a reason to follow you. Outposts are the easier target of the two, since mansions are rare and dangerous, so most players get their first allay from an outpost they pass while exploring.
How to give an allay an item
Hold any item and use it on the allay (right-click on Java, tap and hold on Bedrock). The allay takes one of that item into its hands and bonds to you. From then on it follows you closely, teleporting to catch up if you get too far ahead.
That single item is its job assignment. Hand it a wheat stalk and it hunts for dropped wheat. Hand it cobblestone and it ignores everything except cobblestone. To change its job, take the held item back by interacting with the allay using an empty hand, then give it something new.
How item collecting works
Once an allay is holding an item, it scans the ground nearby for more of the same item. It picks up only loose items lying in the world, the kind that pop out when you mine a block, kill a mob, or drop something from your inventory. It cannot open chests, barrels, hoppers, or any other container, and it leaves items in item frames alone.
It keeps collecting until it is holding a full stack, then flies back and hovers near you with the goods. By default it returns the items to you, so you can walk up and take them. The matching is based on item type, which means an allay told to collect oak planks grabs oak planks and not spruce planks. It picks items up through water without trouble, which makes it handy for cleaning up after underwater mining or fishing.
The allay roams a fair distance from you while it searches, so it can sweep a wide area before coming back. It goes for the closest matching items first and ignores anything that is not the exact item it holds. When there is nothing left to collect, it simply hovers near you and waits for more to appear.
Using a note block as a drop-off point
If you would rather the allay deposit items in one place instead of handing them to you, use a note block. When a note block plays within 16 blocks of an allay that is holding items, the allay remembers that spot. For the next 30 seconds it drops collected items at the note block instead of bringing them to you.
Keep the note block triggering on a loop, with a repeater clock or a steady redstone pulse, and the allay treats it as a permanent collection bin. This is the core of most allay item farms. The allay gathers crops or drops from a wide area and stacks them next to a note block, where a hopper and chest underneath catch everything it brings.
How to duplicate an allay
You cannot breed allays the way you breed animals. Instead you copy them using amethyst, and the trick is to make one dance first.
Place a jukebox and play any music disc in it. Allays within range start spinning in place to the music. While an allay is dancing, use an amethyst shard on it. After a couple of seconds a second allay appears, and the shard is used up. Both allays then sit on a five-minute cooldown before either can be copied again.
Amethyst shards come from amethyst geodes, which are renewable, so this is the only way to build up a large group of allays. Start with one freed allay, feed it shards between cooldowns, and you can grow a working crew fairly quickly.
Allay farm and sorting ideas
The most common setup is a crop collector. Plant a field, harvest it so the crops drop on the ground, and let an allay holding that crop sweep everything to a note block sitting over a hopper. You get a hands-free pickup system that saves you running back and forth.
Allays also do well cleaning up mob farm drops, gathering arrows after a skeleton fight, or pulling a specific resource out of a messy work area. Because each allay tracks one item type, a row of allays parked over a shared note block can each grab a different item and feed the same sorting system.
Two details make these builds reliable. An allay keeps its items when it teleports, so it will not lose a stack if it warps across a gap to reach you. And because allays never despawn, a duplicated group can run in your base for as long as you like without you checking on them.
Keeping an allay at your farm
One quirk catches people out. An allay bonds to whoever hands it an item and tries to follow that player everywhere, so if you build a farm and then walk off, the allay wants to trail after you instead of staying at its post. The usual fix is to box the allay into a small enclosed space around the note block, a glass or fence bubble it cannot fly out of. Trapped near the note block, it collects items in range and deposits them without wandering off.
The note block also helps hold its attention. Every time the block plays, the allay’s focus resets to that spot for 30 seconds, so a looping note block keeps a confined allay working on its drop-off point all day.
Common mistakes with allays
The most frequent one is expecting an allay to empty a chest or pull items out of a hopper. It will not. It only sees items lying loose on the ground, so a collection build has to drop items into the open for the allay to grab. The second common slip is handing it the wrong item and then wondering why it ignores everything on the floor. If your allay is not collecting, check that the item in its hands matches the item you want it to gather, and take that item back with an empty hand to reassign it.
Frequently asked questions
Can allays open chests?
No. Allays only pick up items lying loose on the ground. They cannot pull from chests, barrels, hoppers, or any other container.
How many items can an allay hold?
Up to a full stack of one item type, which is 64 for most items and fewer for things that stack in smaller amounts.
Do allays despawn?
No. Once you free or duplicate an allay, it stays loaded as long as the chunk is active and does not disappear over time.
Can you breed allays?
Not by feeding them. The only way to make more is to duplicate a dancing allay with an amethyst shard near a jukebox playing a music disc.
What do allays drop when they die?
Nothing. Allays drop no items and give no experience, so there is no reason to harm one.
Can allays collect items underwater?
Yes. Allays fly through water freely and will pick up items floating in or sitting under it.
How do you take an item back from an allay?
Interact with the allay using an empty hand. It hands the item back, and you can then give it a different item to change what it collects.
Where is the best place to find an allay?
A pillager outpost is the most reliable spot. Outposts are far more common than woodland mansions and much less dangerous to clear, so an outpost is where most players grab their first allay.
Is the allay worth the effort?
One allay saves you a little walking. A dozen of them, each assigned to a different drop and parked over a note block, turns item collection into something you barely think about. If you free only one thing from your next pillager outpost, make it the allay.