Swing Through Grass Wiki

In vanilla Minecraft, tall grass and other small plants block your attacks. If a mob walks into a patch of tall grass, swinging at it usually just rips out the grass instead of hitting the mob. Mining a block hidden behind a fern or flower destroys the plant first. This guide covers a feature that fixes that nuisance: left-click attacks pass straight through non-solid plants and land on whatever is behind them.

The plant is left untouched. Your swing reaches the block or creature behind the foliage as if the grass were not there. Nothing about combat damage, reach, or mining speed changes - only the plant in the way is ignored.

The rule is based on collision. Plants like tall grass, ferns, flowers, saplings and vines have no collision box - you can walk straight through them. When you left-click while aiming at one of these no-collision plants, the swing does not stop on the plant. Instead the game looks past it:

• If a mob or other attackable entity is in line behind the plant, your attack hits that entity for normal melee damage.
• If a solid block sits behind the plant, your left-click is applied to that block (you begin mining it) instead of breaking the plant.
• The plant itself is never broken by the swing - it stays rooted in the ground.

Solid blocks are unaffected: aiming at stone, dirt, or any block with a real collision shape mines it exactly as normal.

The feature applies to small, walk-through (no-collision) foliage, including:

• Short grass and tall grass
• Ferns and large ferns
• Flowers (dandelions, poppies, tulips, and other small flowers)
• Saplings
• Seagrass and other thin water plants
• Vines and similar hanging or ground foliage

Any plant you can already walk through is a candidate. Plants and blocks that do have collision (such as a cactus, a sweet-berry bush hitbox, or any solid block) are treated normally and are mined or interacted with as usual.

Fighting in overgrown areas becomes much smoother:

• Attack mobs standing in grass - aim at the mob through the grass and swing; the mob takes damage and the grass survives.
• No more accidental weeding mid-fight - you stop wasting swings clearing the plants between you and your target.
• Works on any attackable entity the swing can reach behind the plant, just like a normal melee hit.

Your weapon, enchantments, and damage are unchanged - only the plant that used to block the hit is ignored.

Gathering is also cleaner:

• Mine the block behind a plant - aim through a fern or flower at the dirt, stone, or ore behind it, and your click starts breaking that block instead of the plant.
• Stop destroying decoration - you can dig around flower beds and grassy terrain without flattening every plant first.
• Normal mining is untouched - solid blocks break at their usual speed; only the no-collision plant in front of them is skipped.

• Aim slightly into the foliage at the target behind it - the swing finds the block or mob on the other side automatically.
• Great for jungle, forest, and plains combat, where mobs constantly path through tall grass.
• Use it while terraforming to mine terrain behind decorative plants without clearing them.
• If you actually want to clear grass, remember the attack will pass through it - use the plant's normal break interaction (or a tool action) to remove it instead.

Does my attack still break the grass? No. The swing passes through the plant and hits whatever is behind it; the plant stays in place.

What if there is nothing behind the plant? The swing simply reaches past the plant; with no block or mob in line, nothing is hit and the plant remains.

Does this change how much damage I deal or how fast I mine? No. Damage, reach, and mining speed are exactly the same - only the no-collision plant in the way is ignored.

Which plants does it work on? Any small foliage with no collision box: grass, tall grass, ferns, flowers, saplings, vines and similar plants.

Will it affect solid blocks like cactus or normal blocks? No. Blocks with real collision are mined and interacted with normally.