Utility Vest Mod: Swap Hotbar Layouts Without Losing Your Flow
If you bounce between building projects, mining runs, and redstone tinkering, you already know how annoying it is to reshuffle your hotbar by hand. The Utility Vest mod adds a single wearable item that turns your hotbar into something you can snapshot, store, and reload on demand—perfect when you carry lots of tools and blocks and want to jump between setups in seconds.
What the Utility Vest Actually Does
At its core, the Utility Vest is a Curios body-slot piece that remembers your hotbar layout. You save the current row of items and their order, then restore that exact arrangement later, even across long play sessions. That matters in survival when you want one row for combat, another for construction, and another for farming or exploration mechanics.
- Saves the precise item order on your hotbar, not just “similar” stacks
- Lets you recall layouts when you are deep in a build or juggling many tools
- Works alongside normal inventory management so you spend less time dragging slots
Tiers, Rows, and Progression
The mod offers five vest versions: leather, iron, gold, diamond, and netherite. Each upgrade adds another saved row, so higher tiers mean more preset hotbars you can keep ready. Leather starts you with a single row, while netherite tops out at five—handy on busy servers or in modded packs where you rotate between many blocks and gadgets.
Curios Requirement and Equipping
Curios is required for this mod. By default the vest uses a body slot, so you equip it like other Curios accessories rather than as chest armor. Once it is on, the vest’s filters and stored layouts tie into that slot, which keeps the feature out of the way until you need it.
Default Keybinds: Save, Load, and Organize
Controls are built around quick muscle memory. To save a hotbar preset, you press Left Alt plus a number key; each number lines up with a row on your vest tier. Loading is Left Ctrl plus the same number key, which restores the saved order with the same items you stored. If your current hotbar does not match what you expect, the mod moves items intelligently: matching stacks can shift into the vest inventory, and anything that does not fit the filters lands in your regular inventory instead of vanishing.
Press X by default to pull every item in your inventory that matches any active filter into the vest storage—great after a mining trip when you want tools and materials sorted fast. Press R to open the vest inventory while it is equipped in Curios; Shift + R shows your configured filters so you can sanity-check what the vest is watching for.
You can also open the graphical interface by (Shift +) right-clicking with the vest in hand, which is useful when you prefer clicking through slots instead of relying only on keybinds. If you like trying new quality-of-life mods without rebuilding your whole install by hand, this mod can be easily installed via the foxygame.net launcher—a flexible, modern Minecraft launcher that lets you grab mods straight from the menu, which pairs nicely with Curios-based gear like the vest.
Why Players Reach for the Vest
On large builds, you often need scaffolding blocks, lighting, decoration, and backup tools within easy reach. In combat-heavy biomes or dungeon-style updates, you might want potions, food, and weapons in a fixed pattern. The vest removes the friction of re-sorting after every task change, which makes it a strong utility pick for builders, pack rats, and anyone who treats the hotbar like a toolkit rather than a junk drawer.
Quick Tips Before You Craft
- Plan your filter rows so each number key maps to a clear job—mining, building, farming, and so on
- Practice save and load in a safe area until the Left Alt and Left Ctrl combos feel natural
- Upgrade tiers when you genuinely need more presets; extra rows are only useful if you will use them
- Keep Curios updated for your Minecraft version so body-slot behavior stays stable across updates
Conclusion
The Utility Vest is a focused mod: one item, clear crafting progression through familiar materials, and a workflow built around hotbar memory. If you want smoother swaps between tools and blocks without losing item order, it is one of the cleaner utility additions you can add to a Curios-friendly setup—whether you play vanilla-style survival or a modded world full of new blocks and mechanics.
--- **Update Apr 12, 2026:** Added 1 file for version 1.21 (NeoForge). --- **Update May 10, 2026:** Added 1 file for version 1.21.1 (NeoForge).