So, you’re trying to figure out how to make enderman portal in Minecraft. I get it. You've seen the YouTube thumbnails. You’ve seen the glowing purple gateways in those "100 Days" videos where everything looks cinematic and epic. But here’s the thing—and I’m gonna be totally honest with you right out of the gate—there is a massive amount of confusion about what people actually mean when they type that into Google.
Minecraft terminology is a bit of a mess.
If you are looking for the way to reach the home of the Endermen, you aren't technically making an "Enderman portal." You are making an End Portal. Or maybe you're trying to make a gateway to the outer islands? Or, let's be real, maybe you saw a modded video where someone built a massive obsidian frame and used a custom item to spawn a portal that doesn't exist in the base game.
Let's break down exactly how this works in the real, unmodded version of Minecraft (Java and Bedrock) so you don't waste three hours mining obsidian for a portal that won't light.
The Reality of How to Make Enderman Portal Frames in Survival
In a standard Survival world, you cannot "make" the portal from scratch. You just can't. You can’t craft the blocks. You can’t pick them up with Silk Touch. You have to find them.
The game forces you to be a detective. You’ll need Eyes of Ender, which are crafted by combining Ender Pearls (dropped by Endermen) and Blaze Powder (from Blazes in the Nether). Once you have a handful of these—usually about 12 to be safe—you throw them into the air. They float toward the nearest Stronghold.
It’s a trek. Sometimes it's a few hundred blocks; sometimes it's thousands.
Eventually, the Eye of Ender won't fly away; it’ll sink into the ground. That’s your cue to start digging. Somewhere beneath the dirt and stone is a sprawling, messy labyrinth of mossy stone bricks and iron doors. You have to navigate this maze until you find the portal room. It’s the one with the silverfish spawner sitting right in front of a 3x3 ring of weird, yellowish-green blocks. That is your portal.
Why Your Eyes of Ender Aren't Working
Sometimes you find the room and it's a dud. It happens. World generation in Minecraft is famously "unique," which is a polite way of saying it breaks sometimes.
- You might find a portal frame that was cut in half by a ravine.
- An Eye of Ender might lead you to a Stronghold that doesn't even have a portal room (rare, but it happens).
- You might have placed the eyes in the frame, but nothing happened.
To actually activate the frame, every single one of those 12 blocks needs an Eye of Ender placed in it. When the last one clicks in, the center fills with a pitch-black, starry texture. Step in, and you’re gone.
How to Make Enderman Portal Frames in Creative Mode
Now, if you’re in Creative mode, you can build it yourself. But there is a very specific trick that trips up almost everyone.
I’ve seen countless players build the 3x3 ring (minus the corners), pop the eyes in, and... nothing. They think their game is glitched. It isn't. The secret to how to make enderman portal frames work in Creative is your orientation.
Minecraft tracks which way you are facing when you place a block. The portal frame blocks have an internal "front" and "back." If you stand outside the ring and place the blocks around you, the portal won't light. The "front" of the blocks will be facing the wrong way.
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Here is the fix: Stand in the exact center of where you want the portal to be. Do not move. Rotate your character in a circle and place the three blocks on your left, the three in front of you, the three on your right, and the three behind you. By doing this, you ensure the "face" of the portal frame is pointing inward toward the center. Once you place the eyes, the void will appear instantly.
The "End Gateway" vs. The "End Portal"
This is where the terminology gets even more confusing.
After you kill the Ender Dragon (which, let’s be honest, is easier said than done if you aren't prepared with beds or a good bow), a tiny, one-block portal appears floating in the air. This is the End Gateway.
This isn't the portal that takes you home. It’s the portal that takes you to the outer islands where the End Cities and Elytras are. You can't "make" these either; they spawn as a reward for your victory. To use it, you have to throw an Ender Pearl into the tiny one-block gap. It’s a bit nerve-wracking because if you miss, you’re falling into the void and losing all your gear.
What About the Mods?
We have to address the elephant in the room. If you saw a video of someone making an "Enderman portal" out of End Stone or something fancy, you’re looking at a mod or a data pack.
Popular mods like Aether or various "Dimensional" mods add dozens of portals. In the base game (Vanilla), there are only two main portals: the Nether Portal (Obsidian and Fire) and the End Portal (Stronghold frames and Eyes of Ender). Anything else is likely a custom creation using a mod like BetterEnd or The Undergarden.
If you're playing on a server, some admins use plugins to create "warp" portals that look like End portals but take you to a shopping mall or a survival spawn. Those are created using commands like /setblock or specific server tools.
Gearing Up for the Trip
If you're serious about finding the portal in Survival, don't go empty-handed. Strongholds are dangerous.
- Bring Water Buckets: Endermen hate water. Also, if you fall off a cliff in the Stronghold, a MLG water bucket save is your only hope.
- Bring Shields: Skeletons in those narrow hallways will wreck you.
- Food: Lots of it. Regenerating health is expensive.
- Beds: If you're playing on Bedrock, you can use these to blow up the Dragon. If you're on Java, they are still useful for setting a spawn point right outside the portal room so you don't have to trek 3,000 blocks if you die.
Steps for Success
To wrap this up, if you want to actually reach the End today, follow this workflow. Forget the myths about building frames in the woods out of obsidian and pearls.
- Collect Ender Pearls: Hunt Endermen in a desert or warped forest.
- Get Blaze Powder: Kill Blazes in a Nether Fortress.
- Craft Eyes of Ender: You need at least 12, but take 20 because they sometimes break when thrown.
- Locate the Stronghold: Follow the eyes until they point down.
- Explore the Stronghold: Find the portal room with the silverfish spawner.
- Light the Portal: Stand inside the frame's footprint and place the eyes so they are all facing the center.
The End is the final frontier of the game, but the journey to get there is more about preparation than crafting recipes. Check your coordinates, keep your shield up, and don't look the locals in the eye. Once you're through, the real fight begins.
For players looking to maximize their efficiency, consider setting up a "Nether Hub" to shorten the travel time between your base and the Stronghold. Since one block in the Nether equals eight in the Overworld, a 1,000-block journey becomes a much more manageable 125-block sprint through the red wastes. Just make sure your tunnels are ghast-proof before you start hauling your precious Eyes of Ender through them.
Final word of advice: Always bring a pickaxe to the End. You’ll spawn on a platform of obsidian, and sometimes it's buried inside a pillar of end stone. You don't want to be stuck in a dark box while a dragon screams overhead. Dig your way out, get to the main island, and claim your victory.