A secret door in Minecraft can be used to create hidden entrances and exits. However, they don’t have to be a literal door. There are many ways that you can disguise portals in and out of your base.
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Secret Door #1 – Holes in Walls and Floors
This is by far the simplest variation of a secret door. All you need to do is build an entrance through an area that has blocks you can easily replace. The easiest block for this is Dirt that is part of a wall. You can’t use grassy Dirt blocks, as, when you go to replace the Dirt, the grass will take time to grow back. This would potentially give away the location of your secret door.
You can make a variant of this by using the same approach, but with a floor entrance. This would require you to set up a 1 by 1 shaft with a ladder inside, however, above it, have 1 block to cover the entrance. You will need a tool with the Silk Touch enchantment to use this kind of secret door with grassy Dirt blocks or Stone blocks.
Pros
- Easy to make
- No material cost
- No setup
Cons
- Easy to lose track of (remember the coordinates to get around this)
- Manual operation (can potentially be automated with Pistons)
- Boring
Secret Door #2 – Painting Doors
Paintings come in many shapes and sizes, though are not solid blocks. As such, you can pass through them, though not through most blocks that Paintings can be attached to. However, there are some non-solid blocks that you can stick Paintings to as well. You can place Paintings onto Signs, Fence Gates, Doors, and Trapdoors. You can pass straight through Signs, however, the other 3 mentioned need to be open for you to go through them.
To set up your Painting-covered entrance, you’ll have to make a passage large enough for you to pass through and put one of the above-mentioned items in the space. Afterward, use a Painting on that item to spawn one of the many colorful varieties. Bigger Paintings will only spawn when there is enough space to the right and above the spot that you place it on. For example, if you use a Painting on a spot with 1 free block to the right and above it (a 2 by 2 space), you will most likely spawn a 2 by 2 Painting. You can make a Painting by placing 1 Wool block of any kind on the centermost slot of a Crafting Table and then surrounding it on all sides with Sticks.
Pros
- Easy to make
- No automation required for maximum efficiency
- Looks nice
Cons
- Stands out (to make this secret door more secret, hide your entrance Painting among other Paintings)
- Paintings instant break when hit once, so your secret door can potentially be revealed by accident
- Mobs can possibly come through
Secret Door #3 – Piston Doors
You can use Pistons (and Sticky Pistons) in many different ways to make secret doors. The main idea revolves around lowering and raising 2 vertically-stacked blocks with some sort of Redstone contraption. The simplest way that this can be done is by first placing 2 Pistons facing upward on top of one another. Next, power them in some way—like with a Redstone Torch. When the Pistons are active, place on top of them the 2 vertically-stacked blocks that you want to be your ‘door’.
Following this, place something nearby that will let you invert the Redstone signal to deactivate the Pistons. This should be a Lever or Button near the entrance, though make sure to hide this mechanism as well. You will also have to make another such mechanism inside the entrance so that you can close it back up behind you. As such, you’ll need to do a decent bit of Restone circuitry, albeit the relatively straightforward kind.
Pros
- Can be used anywhere
- Can be automated to work passively
- The entrance is very subtle
Cons
- Requires lots of resources and setup
- You also need to hide the mechanism that opens the door
- You additionally need to hide the circuitry and Pistons
