Tool Head Swapper Mod: Upgrade Your Tools Without Losing Enchantments
Ever stared at a nearly broken iron pickaxe with Efficiency V and Fortune III, dreading the moment you have to craft a fresh diamond tool and start the enchanting grind all over again? The Tool Head Swapper mod flips that frustration on its head — literally. This lightweight, clever mod lets you swap the head of any tool for a different material right in the crafting grid, preserving every enchantment and even carrying over durability. It’s a game-changer for survival builders, miners, and anyone who values their hard-earned XP.
How the Tool Head Swapper Mod Works
The concept is beautifully straightforward. Place any tool — pickaxe, axe, shovel, hoe — into a crafting grid alongside an ingot or material block of the new head you want. Out comes the same tool type, but with the upgraded (or downgraded) material. A stone pickaxe plus an iron ingot yields an iron pickaxe. A diamond axe combined with a netherite ingot gives you a netherite axe. No anvil, no smithing table, no complex recipes.
What makes this mod truly shine is its default behavior: enchantments stay glued to the tool, and durability transfers directly. If your iron pickaxe has 200 durability left, swapping it to diamond will produce a diamond pickaxe with exactly 200 durability. This means you can strategically upgrade a tool that’s on its last legs and then repair it later with the new material, or you can tweak the config to reset durability if you prefer a fresh start. The mod treats all vanilla tools and most modded tools the same way, so you’re never locked into a single progression path.
Why Use Tool Head Swapper?
The benefits go far beyond simple convenience. Here’s what you gain:
- Enchantment Preservation: Keep your Mending, Unbreaking, Silk Touch, and Fortune enchantments intact. No more wasting lapis lazuli and XP levels on a tool you’ve already enchanted.
- Resource Efficiency: Instead of crafting a brand-new tool from scratch every time you unlock a better material, you only need one ingot per upgrade. That’s a huge saving on diamonds and netherite.
- Durability Control: The carried-over durability can be a blessing. You can squeeze every last bit of use from a tool before swapping, then repair the upgraded version at an anvil with the new material — effectively recycling your old durability investment.
- Mod Compatibility: By default, any tool that extends the vanilla tool class is supported. Whether you’re using Tinkers’ Construct, Botania, or a custom modpack, the head swapper recognizes them all, making it a universal quality-of-life addition.
Customizing the Mod Through the Config File
Not everyone wants durability to carry over, and some server owners might want to restrict which materials can be swapped. The Tool Head Swapper mod ships with a clean config file where you can fine-tune everything. You can set durability behavior to “carry over,” “reset to full,” or even “percentage-based transfer” (e.g., keep 75% of the old tool’s remaining durability). You can also blacklist specific items or entire mods from being used in head swaps. This level of control means the mod fits seamlessly into any playstyle, from hardcore survival to creative building worlds.
Accessing the config is simple: after running the game once with the mod installed, a configuration file appears in your Minecraft instance’s config folder. Open it with any text editor, tweak the values, and reload. No coding knowledge required.
Seamless Integration with Modded Tools
One of the mod’s strongest selling points is its out-of-the-box support for modded tools. Because it hooks into Minecraft’s tool class hierarchy, any pickaxe, axe, shovel, or hoe from a mod that uses the standard tool system will work automatically. This includes popular mods like Immersive Engineering, Thermal Foundation, and even many magic mods. For modpack developers, the blacklist feature is a godsend — you can prevent players from swapping overpowered tools or materials that would break progression, all without writing a single line of code.
If you’re running a custom modpack and want to streamline the installation process, the foxygame.net launcher provides a modern, flexible way to manage your mods. From its built-in mod library, you can search for Tool Head Swapper and install it directly into your instance with a single click — no manual file dragging needed. The launcher keeps everything organized and up to date, so you spend less time tinkering and more time crafting.
How to Install Tool Head Swapper
Getting the mod up and running is painless. You can download it from CurseForge or Modrinth (just search for “Tool Head Swapper” on either platform). Make sure you grab the version that matches your Minecraft release and mod loader — the mod is available for both Fabric and Forge. After downloading, place the .jar file into your mods folder. For Fabric, you’ll also need the Fabric API; for Forge, no extra dependencies are required beyond the loader itself.
Once installed, the mod works immediately with no additional setup. You can start swapping tool heads right away, and the config file will generate after your first game launch if you want to make adjustments.
Final Thoughts
Tool Head Swapper is one of those mods that feels like it should have been in vanilla Minecraft from the start. It respects your time and effort by letting you carry enchantments forward, reduces resource grind, and opens up new strategic choices around durability management. The config file gives server admins and players full control, and the broad mod compatibility ensures it fits into nearly any modded environment.
Whether you’re a lone survivalist tired of re-enchanting or a modpack creator looking for a lightweight quality-of-life tweak, this mod delivers. Give it a try, and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without the ability to swap a tool’s head on the fly.