Shulker Box Tooltip | Preview Box Contents on Hover

You need the shulker box with your spare elytra, and you have no idea which one it is. Vanilla Minecraft gives you exactly one way to find out: place the box, open it, sigh, break it, try the next. Shulker Box Tooltip kills that loop. Hover the box in any inventory screen, press shift, and its contents show up right in the tooltip. The mod has picked up roughly 41 million downloads over about four years of development, and it is still shipping fresh updates as of October 2026.

Compact and Full Preview Modes

You get two views out of the box. Hover any item in your inventory and hold shift (the default key) for the compact preview. A small strip appears in the tooltip listing everything the container holds, which is usually all you need when you are hunting for one specific item.

The compact list tells you what is inside but not where. Hold Alt+Shift instead for the full preview. This opens a mini window where every stack renders in its actual slot, so you can see at a glance that the pearls sit in the top row and the gunpowder is hiding in the corner. Keys are the defaults, not fixed rules, since the config lets you remap them.

Together the two modes cover most storage sessions. Preview first, pull the right box, done. If you spend a lot of time in inventory screens anyway, pair this with a sorting mod such as Inventory Profiles Next, so you can preview to find the right box and then sort its contents once placed.

Beyond Shulkers: Chests, Barrels, and Modded Containers

Shulker boxes get the spotlight, but the preview reads other containers too. Anything you grabbed in creative mode with control + pick block, so chests, furnaces, barrels and similar blocks, keeps its contents visible the same way. Most modded containers work as well, and the mod ships a public API that lets other mod authors wire up their own blocks.

There is a bonus option for the data minded. If a hovered item has a loot table attached, its name shows up in the tooltip. That is handy when you are poking through structure loot in a new pack. The option ships disabled by default, so flip it on in the config if you want it.

Config Options, Colors, and Ender Chest Preview

Nearly everything is configurable. The developer recommends Mod Menu for in-game configuration, though it is optional. Open your mod menu, select ShulkerBoxTooltip, and hit the gear icon to reach settings like the activation key, the default preview mode, the theme, and whether previews require sneaking. Prefer editing files by hand? The config lives at config/shulkerboxtooltip.json5 inside your Minecraft folder.

Previews are color aware by default. A cyan shulker gets a cyan-tinted window, so your color-coded storage system stays readable at a glance. Not a fan? One toggle turns it off.

There is also an optional server-side install. The client works fine on its own, but adding the mod to your server unlocks extras, most notably ender chest preview. That means you can check your ender chest straight from any inventory screen without placing it.

How to Install Shulker Box Tooltip

1. Download the mod from the official project page. Builds exist for Fabric, Forge, and NeoForge, so grab the one that matches your loader.
2. On Fabric you also need Fabric Loader and Fabric API. Both are required, so set them up first.
3. Forge and NeoForge builds install the same way, just pick the matching file.
4. Drop the downloaded jar into your mods folder. First time doing this? Our guide to installing Minecraft mods covers the folder location for every major launcher.
5. Optional: add the mod to your server as well if you want ender chest previews and the other server-side extras.
6. Optional: install Mod Menu if you want the in-game config screen on Fabric.

Shulker Box Tooltip FAQ

Does Shulker Box Tooltip work on servers? Yes. It is a client-side mod, so you only need it installed on your own game and servers run fine without it. Installing it server-side is optional and unlocks extras like ender chest preview.

Can I change the preview key? Yes. The config lets you remap the activation key, set the default preview mode, switch the theme, and require sneaking before a preview appears. Change these in-game or edit the json5 config file directly.

Does it work with modded containers? Most of them. Many modded containers show previews out of the box, and the mod exposes a public API so other mod authors can add support for their own blocks.

Is Shulker Box Tooltip still maintained? Yes. The project is actively maintained, has been around for roughly four years under an MIT license, and its latest release landed in October 2026.

Setting up a fresh instance for it? Our guides for Fabric, Forge, and NeoForge walk you through each loader from a blank slate.