Item-Magnet

ItemMagnet — bring your drops to you

ItemMagnet is a free Paper plugin that pulls nearby dropped items towards you. Choose your own attraction radius from 1 to 15 blocks, switch your magnet on or off, and keep your settings between sessions.

Useful for collecting mining drops, gathering building materials and tidying up after a busy inventory moment.

Features

• Personal attraction radius from 1–15 blocks.
• Simple commands with tab completion.
• Separate settings for every player.
• Saved radius and toggle across normal logouts, deaths and server restarts.
• Visible item movement using Minecraft’s normal physics and pickup system.
• Inventory-space checks, including room in matching partial stacks.
• Configurable wall checks, pull speed and dropped-item grace period.
• Per-world disabling and adjustable processing limits.
• No additional plugin dependencies, client mods or resource packs.

Requirements and installation

This release targets Paper 26.2 with Java 25. Folia is not supported.

1. Stop your server.
2. Place ItemMagnet-1.0.0.jar in the server’s plugins folder.
3. Start the server. ItemMagnet will generate its configuration file.
4. Join and enter /magnet 8.

Your magnet is now enabled with an 8-block radius. Enter /magnet off to disable it.

With the default configuration, magnets start off, with a 5-block radius ready to use.

Commands

/itemmagnet is an alias for /magnet and supports the same arguments. /magnet toggle also works.

Radius values must be whole numbers from 1 to 15, inclusive. Invalid input leaves your previous settings unchanged.

Personal commands affect the player running them. The console can use magnet help and magnet reload.

Permissions

Ordinary players can use ItemMagnet by default. A permissions plugin can restrict access or grant configuration access to other administrators.

The use permission is checked during attraction, so removing it also stops further attraction.

How attraction works

The radius is a 3D sphere, measured from just above the player’s feet to the item’s centre. Items within range move towards the player, and Minecraft handles pickup when they arrive.

• Normal physics: Items retain gravity and collision. Uneven ground and raised ledges may require moving closer or changing position.
• Clear paths: By default, blocking collision shapes—including walls, glass and closed doors—prevent attraction. Water and passable plants do not block the path. Items do not navigate around corners.
• Inventory space: Items are attracted only when the main inventory or hotbar can accept at least some of the stack. Matching partial stacks count as available space. If only part fits, normal Minecraft pickup leaves the remainder.
• No reserved space: Inventory capacity is checked repeatedly. Several approaching stacks may collectively exceed the remaining space.
• Dropped-item grace: Items thrown by players are ignored by all magnets for 3 seconds by default. This grace remains when they merge into another item pile. Walking directly over them still follows normal Minecraft pickup rules. Use /magnet off when discarding items for longer.
• Pickup rules: Item ownership, pickup delays and restrictions preventing player pickup are respected. Magnets are inactive while players are dead or spectating.
• Multiple players: When magnets overlap, the nearest eligible player among the candidates processed during that update receives the pull. Exact ties use a consistent player-ID order. Items are not reserved; another nearby player can still pick them up.
• Disabled worlds: Attraction pauses in configured worlds. Returning to an allowed world resumes your saved enabled setting.

Only dropped item entities are attracted. Experience orbs, embedded arrows, item frames and items inside containers are unaffected.

Configuration

Settings are stored in:

plugins/ItemMagnet/config.yml

Edit the file, save it, then use /magnet reload or restart the server.

For example, to disable attraction in two worlds:

disabled-worlds:
  - minigames
  - arena

Changing server defaults does not overwrite saved player preferences.

Malformed YAML or invalid numeric values cause a reload to be rejected while the previous working configuration remains active. An invalid configuration at startup prevents the plugin from enabling and logs the problem.

Saved settings

Each player’s radius and toggle are stored in Minecraft’s player data. Back up your world/player data as well as the plugin configuration if you want to preserve those preferences.

Normal saves, logouts and shutdowns preserve settings. A crash or forced shutdown can lose changes made since the last player-data save.

Performance and other plugins

ItemMagnet uses one scheduled task, updating every 2 ticks by default—10 times per second at normal server speed. It searches nearby loaded items around active magnet users and does not load chunks for attraction.

Processing limits help control the work performed during each update. Large item piles may take longer to attract. These limits do not eliminate the cost of finding nearby entities, so ItemMagnet is not a solution for excessive dropped-item buildup.

Normal pickup events still run, allowing other plugins to cancel collection. A cancelled pickup pauses magnet attraction for that item for 3 seconds.

ItemMagnet does not check region or claim permissions before moving an item. Items moving across a protection boundary may interact differently with plugins that check only the final pickup location. Test your protection and loot plugins together, and use disabled-worlds where needed.

Troubleshooting and bug reports

If an item is not moving, check /magnet status, your inventory space, distance, obstacles, permissions and whether the world is disabled. Recently thrown items may still be within their grace period.

For bug reports, include your Paper version, ItemMagnet version, relevant configuration, steps to reproduce the issue and any console errors.

Author: IchorX