How to Turn Off the Locator Bar in Minecraft

Turn off the Minecraft Locator Bar for a world, one player, or just yourself — with the right game rule name for each Java and Bedrock version.

Last updated: 2026-07-23

There are four different things people mean by "turn off the locator bar", and they need four different commands. Picking the wrong one is why so many attempts appear to do nothing.

Turn it off for the whole world, so nobody sees anyone. That is a game rule.
Turn off only your own bar, while everyone else keeps theirs. That is your receive range.
Hide yourself from everyone else's bar, while keeping your own. That is your transmit range — or just crouching.
Limit it rather than kill it, so the bar only works within a set number of blocks. That is a range value other than zero.

Work out which one you want, then jump to that method. Every command below is followed by the exact command that undoes it.

Method 1 — Disable it world-wide on Java Edition

This is the one most people are after. The locator_bar game rule is a boolean that defaults to true, and setting it to false removes all existing waypoints from every player immediately.

The command depends on your version, because Mojang renamed the rule twice:

Java Edition 1.21.11 and later, including 26.1 and 26.2 — /gamerule locator_bar false
Java Edition 1.21.6 through 1.21.10 — /gamerule locatorBar false
Snapshot 25w15a only, behind the experimental data pack — useLocatorBar

The change came in snapshot 25w44a, part of 1.21.11 (released 9 December 2025). Mojang moved every game rule into a registry and, in their words, renamed them "from their previous camel case names to resource locations in snake case". The full identifier today is minecraft:locator_bar.

If your command comes back as an unknown game rule, you have the casing for the wrong version. That is the whole problem, and it is why guides written in 2025 no longer work.

Requirements. /gamerule needs permission level 2 — operator on a server, or cheats enabled in a single-player world. Enabling cheats in an existing survival world disables achievements for that world on Java, so decide before you type.

Without commands. You can toggle the same rule from a screen:

At world creation — "Create New World", then "Game Rules" / "Edit Game Rules". The locator bar toggle sits in the Player category.
In-game, from Java Edition 26.1 onward (released 24 March 2026) — the difficulty button in the pause menu was replaced with a World Options screen containing both difficulty and game rules, and a search bar was added at the top of the game rules list, so you can type "locator" instead of scrolling. That in-game screen is "available for all operators and otherwise disabled", so a non-op on a server will not see it.

To turn it back on — /gamerule locator_bar true, or /gamerule locatorBar true on 1.21.10 and earlier. The rule defaults to true, so a fresh world always ships with the bar enabled.

Method 2 — Disable it world-wide on Bedrock Edition

Bedrock has its own rule, and it changed name too.

Bedrock Edition 26.30 and later (26.30 released 16 June 2026) — /gamerule playerwaypoints off. Values are off and everyone, and everyone is the default.
Bedrock Edition 1.21.90 through 26.23 — /gamerule locatorbar false. This was a boolean.

Preview 26.30.20 removed the boolean locatorbar rule outright and added playerwaypoints as its replacement. Existing worlds migrate automatically: locatorbar true becomes playerwaypoints everyone, and false becomes off. Preview 26.30.29 renamed the matching UI toggle from "Locator bar" to "Player waypoints". On the scripting side the beta locatorBar: boolean property was removed and playerWaypoints: PlayerWaypointsMode added.

If you are on 26.30 or later and locatorbar is rejected, that is expected — the rule was removed, not deprecated.

The important Bedrock difference: this rule is changeable without cheats. It is listed among the game rules available from the world menus without enabling cheats, under the Multiplayer section. So on Bedrock you can turn the locator bar off from:

Create New World — the "Multiplayer" section of the world settings.
Edit World — the same settings on an existing world.
The pause menu — game settings while playing.

Look for "Player waypoints" on 26.30 and later, or "Locator bar" before that. Because no cheats are involved, achievements stay enabled. That is a genuine advantage Bedrock has here, and it is worth using the menu rather than the command.

To turn it back on — /gamerule playerwaypoints everyone, or set the menu toggle back.

Method 3 — Turn off only your own bar

If you want your own HUD clean but do not want to change the world for everyone, drop your receive range to zero. A player with a receive range of zero receives no waypoint information at all.

Turn off — /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range base set 0
Turn back on — /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range base set 60000000
Check the current value — /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range get

Two details matter. First, the correct restore value is 60,000,000, which is the player base value — not 0, and not the generic attribute default of 0.0 you will see in attribute tables. Those tables list the generic default for the attribute; players ship with a base of 60,000,000 written on top of it. Confusing the two is the fastest way to lock yourself out of your own bar permanently.

Second, this is still a command, so it needs permission level 2. On a server you cannot do this to yourself unless you are an operator or the server runs a plugin that exposes it. That is exactly why per-player locator toggle plugins exist for Paper and Spigot — they wrap this attribute so ordinary players can set it. Those plugins are third-party and not documented by Mojang; behavior varies by plugin.

Only players have the receive range attribute, so there is no equivalent for mobs. Bedrock Edition has no receive range attribute at all, and therefore no per-player off switch — on Bedrock it is the world rule or nothing.

Method 4 — Hide only yourself from other players

This is the opposite direction: your bar stays on, but you stop appearing on everyone else's. The clean, no-command version is available to every player on both editions:

Sneak. Crouching applies the modifier minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range_crouch at value -1.0 with operation add_multiplied_total, which multiplies your transmit range down to zero for as long as you hold it. Release and you are visible again.
Wear a head item. Any of these worn in the head slot hides you: Carved Pumpkin, Skeleton Skull, Wither Skeleton Skull, Player Head, Zombie Head, Creeper Head, Dragon Head, Piglin Head.
Drink a Potion of Invisibility. The Invisibility effect applies minecraft:effect.waypoint_transmit_range_hide, also -1.0 add_multiplied_total, hiding you for the duration.
Enter spectator mode. Spectators are not shown to non-spectators. They remain visible to other spectators, which is deliberate.

The permanent, command-based version on Java Edition:

Hide — /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 0
Unhide — /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 60000000

A carved pumpkin is the most practical of the no-command options if you want to stay hidden indefinitely — plenty of players already wear one to avoid enderman aggro. The cost is the pumpkin overlay on your screen.

One thing to understand about how these interact: because sneaking and invisibility use add_multiplied_total with a value of -1.0, they multiply your total transmit range to zero. They beat any base value you set, and conversely /attribute ... base set cannot cancel them. Only standing up, removing the item, or letting the effect expire restores you.

Method 5 — Limit the range instead of switching it off

Turning the bar off completely removes a genuinely useful feature. Often what a server actually wants is "you can find your friends nearby but not track someone across the map". Both attributes accept any value from 0 to 60,000,000, and Mojang's own 25w17a examples show exactly this pattern:

/attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 80 — this player is only visible within 80 blocks.
/attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range base set 120 — this player only sees waypoints within 120 blocks.

Both ranges must be satisfied for a dot to render, so the effective distance between any two players is the smaller of the transmitter's range and the receiver's range. Applying base set 100 to everyone with @a produces a symmetric 100-block bubble, which for a PvP or survival-multiplayer server is usually a better compromise than an outright ban.

Since this is a per-entity attribute, a data pack that applies it on join is the durable way to enforce it across a whole server without giving anyone a command.

Method 6 — Servers, Realms, and hosted worlds

The locator bar is a server-authoritative system. Mojang describes it as a "Server-authoritative Waypoint broadcasting system" in which the server manages the connections between waypoints and players — so on a multiplayer server, the server's setting is the only one that counts. There is no client-side option in either edition that hides only the locator bar.

Dedicated Java servers — run /gamerule locator_bar false from the console or as an operator. There is no server.properties entry for it; it is a per-world game rule stored in level data.
Proxied networks — the rule belongs to the backend world you are actually in, not the lobby. Set it on each backend, or you will see it disabled in one place and enabled in another.
Paper and Spigot — plugins exist that remove the bar or expose a per-player toggle. They are third-party, not covered by Mojang documentation, and their behavior is entirely up to the plugin author. If the bar behaves oddly on a server that has the rule set correctly, a plugin is the first thing to check.
Realms — you get whatever the world options screen exposes. On Java, an operator can set the rule normally. On Bedrock, "Player waypoints" appears in the world settings without needing cheats.
Rented hosts — some ship modified jars. If a correct game rule does not take effect, ask which build they run.

What does not work

Time saved by knowing what to skip:

F1 is not a locator bar toggle. It hides the entire HUD — hotbar, health, hunger and all. Bedrock Edition's "Hide HUD" option does the same job.
There is no video or accessibility setting for it. Neither edition ships a client-side option that hides only the locator bar, in any released version through Java Edition 26.2 and Bedrock Edition 26.30.
A resource pack cannot remove it. Packs can restyle waypoint icons through the waypoint_style/ directory and the sprites under hud/locator_bar_dot/, and a broken pack produces missing-texture icons — but the bar still occupies the slot and still tracks players. Blanking icons hides information from you without hiding you from anyone.
Gaining XP is not a fix. The locator bar does yield to the experience bar for 100 ticks (5 seconds) whenever your XP changes or you close an anvil or enchanting table GUI, but that is a five-second reprieve, not a setting.
/waypoint does not turn anything off. It only changes the color and style of a waypoint that is already being drawn. There is no /waypoint disable.

Undo cheat sheet

/gamerule locator_bar false is undone by /gamerule locator_bar true — Java 1.21.11 and later.
/gamerule locatorBar false is undone by /gamerule locatorBar true — Java 1.21.6 to 1.21.10.
/gamerule playerwaypoints off is undone by /gamerule playerwaypoints everyone — Bedrock 26.30 and later.
/gamerule locatorbar false is undone by /gamerule locatorbar true — Bedrock 1.21.90 to 26.23.
/attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range base set 0 is undone by base set 60000000.
/attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 0 is undone by base set 60000000.
Sneaking, head items, invisibility and spectator mode are undone by stopping — no command needed.

Frequently asked questions

Does turning off the locator bar disable achievements? On Java Edition, using /gamerule requires cheats, and enabling cheats in an existing world disables that world's achievements. On Bedrock Edition the locator bar rule is one of the rules changeable without cheats from the world menus, so achievements are unaffected if you use the menu.

Can I turn it off just for myself on a server? Only if you are an operator, or the server runs a plugin that exposes it. The mechanism is /attribute @s minecraft:waypoint_receive_range base set 0, and ordinary players cannot run /attribute. On Bedrock there is no per-player option at all.

Will turning it off hide me from other players? If you set the world game rule, yes — nobody sees anybody, because the rule removes all existing waypoints from all players. If you only zero your own receive range, no: you go blind, but everyone can still see you. Hiding yourself is the transmit range, or crouching.

Is there a way to hide from the locator bar without commands? Yes, four of them: sneak, wear a carved pumpkin or one of the seven skull and head items, drink a Potion of Invisibility, or go into spectator mode.

Why did /gamerule locatorBar false stop working? Because you updated past Java Edition 1.21.11, where all game rules were renamed to snake case. Use locator_bar.

Does turning it off remove waypoints already on screen? Yes. Mojang's 25w17a notes state that setting the rule to false removes all existing waypoints from all players.

Can I keep the bar but stop one specific player showing up? Set that player's transmit range to zero: /attribute <player> minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 0. It hides them from everyone at once, not selectively — Java has no per-pair visibility control.