How to increase item despawn rate minecraft?

Great question! It's a common misconception. The rate is fixed, but you can simulate a faster despawn by concentrating your item cleanup. Build a "trash can" using a dropper pointing into a block of lava with a button on the dropper. Instead of throwing unwanted items on the ground, just dump them in there. It's instant, lag-free, and saves you from waiting around for five minutes. For farms that produce too many items, design them with a water stream leading to a hopper that feeds into a chest or a lava pit for the excess.

Honestly, in vanilla Minecraft, you can't directly "increase" the despawn rate. Items on the ground will always despawn after exactly 5 minutes (6000 game ticks) if you're more than 128 blocks away. If you're within that range, the timer is paused. There's no setting to change this.

However, if you're trying to reduce lag from a massive number of items, here are some things you can do: * Use hoppers or minecart with hoppers to collect items instantly. * Dump items into lava or cactus to destroy them immediately. * If you're on a server, there might be plugins like ClearLag that can change despawn times or clear items periodically. You'd have to ask your server admin about that.

Just to add to the previous answer, if you're playing on Java Edition and are open to using mods or data packs, that's your only real solution. Mods like Carpet Mod have settings that allow you to change the item despawn timer. Alternatively, if you're on a Realm or server, look for a "fast item despawn" data pack. But for pure vanilla survival, you're stuck with the 5-minute rule. It's actually a good mechanic—gives you time to retrieve your stuff if you die!