How to Make Mud in Minecraft

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: Use a water bottle on any dirt, coarse dirt or rooted dirt block and it turns into mud. Natural mud fills mangrove swamps. Mud crafts into packed mud and mud bricks, and dries into clay over a pointed dripstone.

What you need

Glass bottles (3 glass each)
Dirt of any kind
A shovel for natural mud in mangrove swamps
Wheat for packed mud, pointed dripstone for clay

Step by step

Craft water bottles: fill glass bottles at any water source or cauldron.
Use a bottle on dirt: right-click dirt, coarse dirt or rooted dirt with the water bottle. The block becomes mud.
Automate it: a dispenser loaded with water bottles converts dirt on its own, which is how automatic mud farms work (dispensers even hit the bottom face, which players cannot).
Or dig it naturally: mangrove swamps are carpeted in mud, and it also shows up in trail ruins and some trial chambers entrances. A shovel is fastest.
Craft the building blocks: mud + wheat makes packed mud, and 4 packed mud make 4 mud bricks - a full warm-brown brick palette with stairs, slabs and walls.
Dry it into clay: place mud on top of a block with a pointed dripstone hanging underneath and it converts to clay (about 17.6% chance, 45/256, each time the stalactite's uppermost block gets a random tick). This makes mud the renewable clay pipeline - see our clay farm.
Know the quirks: mud is slightly shorter than a full block - entities sink into it a little (no slowdown, unlike soul sand), sand drops as an item on it, and hoppers can pull items through it.

Java vs Bedrock

Conversion and crafting are the same in both editions; the mud-to-clay conversion does not happen in the Nether.

Versions: Added in Java 1.19 and Bedrock 1.19.0 (The Wild Update, 2022) with the mangrove swamp.

Frequently asked questions

Can you turn mud back into dirt?

Indirectly, yes: grow an azalea tree on mud and the mud below becomes rooted dirt, which you can hoe into normal dirt.

Is mud renewable?

Yes - water bottles on dirt make infinite mud, and water is infinite. That also makes clay renewable through the dripstone drying trick.

Does mud slow you down like soul sand?

No. You sink a few pixels into mud, but movement speed is normal - it is safe for paths and farms.