How to Spawn an Ender Dragon

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: May 23, 2022

This wikiHow teaches you how to spawn an Ender Dragon in Minecraft. You can cause the Ender Dragon to appear naturally by visiting The End, or you can use cheat commands to spawn the Ender Dragon in a regular world. Keep in mind that you cannot spawn the Ender Dragon on console versions of Minecraft.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Visiting The End

1
Know how to access the Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon lives in a domain referred to as "The End", which is the final area in Minecraft's background story. In order to reach The End, you'll have to either find or build an End Portal.^{[1]
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2
Create your End Portal in Creative Mode. Since you can't actually build a portal to The End in Survival Mode, you should consider using Creative Mode to give yourself the necessary resources—12 End Portal blocks and 12 Eyes of Ender—and then create the End Portal itself.^{[2]
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- If you decide to use Creative Mode to build your End Portal, skip the next two steps.
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3
Find an End Portal if you're playing on Survival Mode. If you don't use Creative Mode to build your End Portal, you'll have to find an existing End Portal in a stronghold. You will also need 12 Eyes of Ender, which can be created by combining Ender Pearls with Blaze Rods (these are found by killing Blazes in The Nether) in your inventory's Crafting section.
4
Add the Eyes of Ender to the frame. If you're playing on Survival Mode, you'll need to add your Eyes of Ender to the End Portal frame by doing the following:
- Step into the portal ring.
- Equip the Eyes of Ender.
- Stand facing a portal block.
- Select the portal block to place an Eye of Ender on it.
- Repeat with each Ender Portal block in the frame.
5
Wait for The End to load. Once you place the final Eye of Ender on the last empty block, you will be transported to The End; since this area is distinct from the rest of Minecraft's world, it may take a couple of minutes for The End to load.
6
Defeat the Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon is regarded as the final boss of Minecraft, and you must defeat her (Minecraft has officially claimed her to be female) to return to the overworld.
- You may want to brush up on some pointers regarding killing the Ender Dragon if you plan on fighting her.
7
Respawn the Ender Dragon after the fight. If you want to bring back the Ender Dragon after defeating her in The End, craft four End Crystals and place one on each side of the exit portal in The End. This will cause the Ender Dragon to respawn, allowing you to fight her again.
- Subsequent Ender Dragon fights will yield 500 XP for each kill, but not additional Ender Dragon eggs.
- You can’t re-spawn the dragon by taking the Ender Dragon egg and placing it on the exit portal. This is a very common Minecraft myth.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Using the Cheat Console on Desktop

1
Open Minecraft. Click or double-click the Minecraft Java app icon, which resembles a three-dimensional grassy block of dirt, and then click START at the bottom of the launcher window that appears.
- If you're using the Minecraft Bedrock Edition on desktop, you'll need to follow the instructions in the mobile section.
2
Click Singleplayer. It's at the top of the Minecraft menu.
3
Click Create New World. You'll see this near the bottom of the window.
4
Switch to Creative Mode. Click the "Game Mode" box until you see "Creative" listed next to the "Game Mode" tag.
5
Click More World Options…. It's near the bottom of the window. A new menu will open.
6
Enable cheats. Click the Allow Cheats button until it has "ON" listed next to it.^{[3]
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7
Click Create New World. You'll see this at the bottom of the window. Doing so creates your new game world with cheats enabled.
8
Bring up the console. Press the "slash" key / to do so. You should see a text box appear at the bottom of the screen.
9
Enter the "summon" command. Type in summon ender_dragon ~ ~ ~ {DragonPhase:0} and press ↵ Enter.
- There is a space between each of the tilde (~) marks.
- You can just type in summon ender_dragon to summon a floating dragon that doesn't move or interact with the environment.
10
Wait for the Ender Dragon to appear. After a couple of seconds, you should see the Ender Dragon pop up below you; she will begin flying around immediately after appearing.
- The Ender Dragon is hostile in this phase, but she won't attack you since you're playing in Creative Mode.
- If you switch back to Survival Mode, the Ender Dragon will attack you, thus allowing you to fight her. Keep in mind that you won't receive any achievements for killing her.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Using the Cheat Console on Mobile

1
Open Minecraft. Tap the Minecraft app icon, which resembles a grassy block of dirt.
2
Tap Play. It's at the top of the menu that's in the middle of the screen.
3
Tap Create New. You'll find this at the top of the screen.
4
Tap Create New World. It's near the top of the screen.
5
Switch to Creative Mode. While optional, spawning the Ender Dragon in Survival Mode can both kill you quickly and cause significant damage to your world. You can mitigate this by tapping the "Default Game Mode" drop-down box and then tapping Creative in the drop-down menu.
6
Scroll down and tap the "Activate Cheats" switch. You'll find this in the middle of the "World Options" section of the menu that's on the right side of the screen.
7
Tap Continue when prompted. Doing so acknowledges that you won't receive progress toward achievements while cheats are enabled.
8
Tap Create. This is on the upper-left side of the screen. Your game will launch.
9
Open the console. Tap the speech bubble-shaped "Chat" icon at the top of the screen, then tap the text box that appears at the bottom of the screen. A keyboard will appear on-screen.
- If you're following these instructions for the Bedrock Edition version of Minecraft on desktop, just press the "slash" / key.
10
Enter the "summon" command. Use the on-screen keyboard to type in /summon ender_dragon and then tap the right-facing arrow on the far-right side of the text box.^{[4]
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11
Wait for the Ender Dragon to appear. You will see the message "Summoned new Ender Dragon" appear in the lower-left corner of the game window to indicate that the ender dragon has been summoned. After a couple of seconds, you should see the Ender Dragon pop up below you; she will begin flying around immediately after appearing.^{[5]
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- The Ender Dragon is hostile in this phase, but she won't attack you since you're playing in Creative Mode.
- If you switch back to Survival Mode, the Ender Dragon will attack you, thus allowing you to fight her. Keep in mind that you won't receive any achievements for killing her.

Community Q&A

Question

How can I make a portal to the end?

Community Answer

You have to make sure the blocks and eyes are facing the same way. Stand in the center of where you want to build and find a video on how to place them correctly. Then, stand in the middle and place the eyes of ender. you can get those by killing an enderman and blaze. combine the drops and you have an eye of ender. To make a Nether portal, you need 10-14 blocks of obsidian and 0-4 other blocks and flint and steel. Make sure to take a few ender pearls with you because once you defeat the dragon, a tiny one-block portal is there in the sky. Use an enderpearl to get through and you'll be in the end city. There are special banners there and lots of chests that have iron enchanted items.
Question

How do I get a command block?

Community Answer

You have to have cheats enabled to do this: Open chat and type /give minecraft:command_block.
Question

My dragon isn't spawning despite having cheats on and version 1.12. What do I do?

Community Answer

Check if you are in peaceful mode. If you are, this would stop the dragon from spawning.

Warnings

Avoid spawning an Ender Dragon from a high tower or structure when playing Survival Mode. This prevents the dragon from making your character fall down if it gets too close.

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