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Nether Portal Calculator

The Nether is eight times smaller than the Overworld, so linking two portals is a division problem. Enter the coordinates you have, get the ones to build at, and see the search box the game will check before it decides to make a new portal instead.

Converting Overworld → Nether

Enter the coordinates of the portal you already have.

Overworld coordinates

Press F3 in game to read your current position off the debug screen.

Build the Nether portal at

X

0

Y

64

Z

0

/tp @s 0 64 0

What the game will do when you light it

Before it creates a portal, the game looks for an existing one within 16 blocks in the Nether — that is X from -16 to 16 and Z from -16 to 16. Anything already inside that box gets reused instead, which is the usual reason two portals share one exit.

Getting the link to hold

The maths is the easy half. These are the things that make a correctly calculated portal still come out somewhere you did not expect.

  1. 1

    Build the destination portal yourself

    If nothing exists within range, the game generates a portal for you at a spot it picks — often buried in netherrack or hanging over lava. Place and light the pair manually at the calculated coordinates and you keep control of both ends.

  2. 2

    Match the Y, do not scale it

    Only X and Z divide by eight. Y passes through unchanged, so a portal at Y 64 in the Overworld wants Y 64 in the Nether. Building at a different height still links, but the game may prefer a closer portal over the one you meant.

  3. 3

    Mind the 128-block Overworld search

    Two Nether portals within 16 blocks of each other resolve to Overworld exits 128 apart — and the search radius coming back is 128 blocks, so they will happily collapse onto the same one. Space Nether portals further apart than you think you need to.

  4. 4

    Seal the destination before you step through

    A Nether portal opens wherever the coordinates land, including inside a lava lake or on a ghast highway. Build the frame from the Overworld side first, then wall the far end in before anyone commutes through it.

  5. 5

    Use it for the highway, not just the pair

    The eight-to-one ratio is why Nether tunnels are the fast way to travel. A 1,000-block Overworld trip is 125 blocks of tunnel — calculate both endpoints first and you can dig the corridor straight between them.

Build the highway somewhere it stays.

A Nether hub is worth digging once. Run it on a server that is up when you are not — NVMe storage, automatic backups, DDoS protection and instant setup.