Minecraft tick command guide

Updated: 30 October 2026

Common commands

What freeze does

Mobs, redstone, crops and the day cycle stop, but players can still move. Freeze, then /tick step one tick at a time to see the exact order signals travel through a redstone circuit.

rate vs sprint

• rate sets ticks per second and stays that way, faster or slower.
• sprint runs a set number of ticks as fast as your computer can, then returns to normal. Handy for checking crop growth or smelting without waiting.

Very high rates make the game lag because the computer cannot keep up. On a server, every player is affected.

Using /tick query to measure lag

/tick query shows the target tick rate and how many milliseconds each tick actually takes.

To run 20 ticks per second, each tick has to finish within 50 ms (1000 ÷ 20). If the number is above 50 ms, the game cannot keep up and everything slows down.

• At rate 40 each tick only gets 25 ms. On a world that is already heavy, a higher number does not make it faster.
• After a sprint the game reports how many ticks per second it managed, which is a quick way to judge how heavy a world is.

To cut lag, look at dropped items, mob counts and redstone clocks that never stop.

Where it is not available

• Bedrock: no /tick. Use /time add to move the clock.
• Java 1.20.2 and earlier: not added yet.
• No permission: needs cheats or operator.

Good to know

• A higher rate also speeds up the day and night cycle.
• Settings may not reset on their own; finish with /tick rate 20 and /tick unfreeze.
• Players are not frozen and can place and break blocks during freeze.

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