How to Get Curse of Vanishing in Minecraft

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: Curse of Vanishing is a treasure enchantment (level I only) that makes the item disappear forever when you die - no death drop, no corpse run. It comes from fishing, librarian trades, and structure chests, and it can appear on almost any gear. It is a curse: the main skill is knowing how to work around it.

What you need

Nothing to craft - it is a treasure enchantment
Fishing rod, librarian villager, or structure chests
A shulker box or bundle (to smuggle it through death)
Nerves of steel

Step by step

Know what it does. When you die holding a cursed item, it vanishes from the world instead of dropping. Nothing - not even a hopper - can recover it.
Find it as treasure. It never comes from the enchanting table. Fishing loot, librarian trades (swamp librarians with the trade rebalance datapack), non-village structure chests and, in Bedrock, raid drops.
Learn the exceptions. The item does NOT vanish if you manually dropped it before dying, or if it sits inside a shulker box or bundle in your inventory - the curse cannot see inside containers. With keep_inventory on, it never triggers at all.
Accept it cannot be cleansed. Grindstones and crafting combining cannot remove curses. Once an item is cursed, it stays cursed until it vanishes or breaks.
Exploit it. Vanishing has real uses: it prevents enemies from looting your gear in PvP, and mapmakers use it for one-life items. For everyday gear, though, treat it as a warning label on otherwise nice loot.

Java vs Bedrock

Same behavior in Java and Bedrock: vanish on death, containers and manual drops exempt, keep_inventory disables it. In Bedrock it can also appear on the recovery compass - a uniquely cruel combination.

Versions: Curse of Vanishing arrived in the Exploration Update (Java 1.11, 2016; Bedrock 1.1, 2017) together with Curse of Binding.

Frequently asked questions

How do I remove Curse of Vanishing?

You cannot - grindstones and crafting cannot strip curses. The practical workaround is not removal but routing: keep the item inside a shulker box or bundle, where the curse cannot trigger, or drop it before a risky fight.

Does Curse of Vanishing work in a shulker box?

No - items inside shulker boxes or bundles survive death normally. This is intended behavior (Mojang marked the bug report as works-as-intended) and the standard way to protect cursed loot.

Is Curse of Vanishing ever useful?

Yes - in PvP it denies your killer the loot, since your best sword vanishes instead of dropping for them. Adventure maps also use it to enforce single-use items. Outside that, it is a tax on treasure loot.