How to Change Locator Bar Color in Minecraft

Change your Minecraft Locator Bar color with /waypoint — named colors, custom hex, resets, what overrides what, and why Bedrock cannot change theirs.

最近更新: 2026-07-23

There are exactly three ways to change a Locator Bar color in vanilla Minecraft, and all three are Java Edition only: the /waypoint command with a named color, the same command with a hex code, and team colors. Bedrock has none of them — a Bedrock player's marker color is reassigned randomly every session and is not player-controllable at all.

This page covers each method, the order in which they override one another, what survives a world reload, and what to do when the color you set does not appear.

Where the default color comes from

In Java Edition, a waypoint's color is derived from the entity's UUID. That is why it looks random and why it is not: the same UUID always produces the same marker color, on every world and every server, until something overrides it. The official 1.21.6 notes describe the indicators as "randomized for each player" — the randomness is the UUID, not a per-session roll.

Because the mapping is deterministic, you can look a color up before you ever join a server. The locator bar color finder resolves a username or UUID to the exact default marker color, and the locator bar color checker compares several players at once so you can find out in advance whose markers will be hard to tell apart.

Bedrock is the opposite. On Bedrock the color is assigned randomly to the player at every session, so it changes when you rejoin, and no lookup can predict it.

Method 1: change the color with a named color

/waypoint modify <waypoint> color <color>

<waypoint> is an entity selector that must resolve to exactly one entity. Examples:

/waypoint modify Steve color gold
/waypoint modify @s color aqua
/waypoint modify @p color light_purple

You need permission level 2 and cheats enabled. There are 16 valid names:

black — #000000
dark_blue — #0000AA
dark_green — #00AA00
dark_aqua — #00AAAA
dark_red — #AA0000
dark_purple — #AA00AA
gold — #FFAA00
gray — #AAAAAA
dark_gray — #555555
blue — #5555FF
green — #55FF55
aqua — #55FFFF
red — #FF5555
light_purple — #FF55FF
yellow — #FFFF55
white — #FFFFFF

Version trap: since Java Edition 26.2, the color argument accepts only lowercase names with underscores. dark_purple works; darkpurple and DarkPurple are rejected. Commands and command blocks written for 1.21.x can start failing after an update for exactly this reason.

Method 2: change the color with a hex code

/waypoint modify <waypoint> color hex <hex_color>

The value is a web-order RRGGBB hex number. Mojang's own examples are FF0000 (or the shorthand F00) for red and 6495ED for cornflower blue:

/waypoint modify @s color hex 6495ED
/waypoint modify Alex color hex 00FF00

This is the only way to get a color outside the 16-name palette. If you want a team's markers to match a brand color, or you want six players to sit on evenly spaced hues, the hex form is what you use. The waypoint command generator will assemble these lines for you and validate the hex before you paste it into chat.

Method 3: change the color with a team

Team color is the one method that scales without running a command per player, and the one method that survives a restart cleanly.

/team add red_squad
/team modify red_squad color red
/team join red_squad Steve Alex

Any player or mob that belongs to a team takes that team's color on the Locator Bar. It is set once and applies to everyone who joins the team afterwards, which makes it the right tool for factions, PvP events, and minigame lobbies.

Team colors use the same 16 names as /waypoint, and the same 26.2 lowercase-with-underscores rule now applies to team modify <name> color too.

Method 4: reset back to the default

/waypoint modify <waypoint> color reset

This clears an explicit override. The waypoint falls back to its default color — the entity's team color if it has one, otherwise the UUID-derived default.

To reset by removing the team instead:

/team leave Steve

Which override wins

From lowest to highest priority:

UUID-derived default. Applies when nothing else is set.
Team color. Overrides the default for any entity on a team with a color set.
Explicit /waypoint modify ... color or ... color hex. Overrides both of the above.

color reset removes only step 3, so an entity on a team drops back to the team color, not to its UUID color. To get all the way back to the UUID color, reset the waypoint color and remove the entity from the team.

What persists and what does not

This is where most confusion about "my color reverted" comes from.

Team colors persist. Teams are saved with the world.
Explicit waypoint colors are stored on the entity in a locator_bar_icon NBT compound, alongside the waypoint's style name. The color is stored as a 32-bit signed integer.
But tracking can lapse. An entity that is only tracked because you set its color — that is, one whose waypoint_transmit_range is still 0 — stops being tracked after the world is reloaded, and it never shows on the bar in the first place. Only players and entities with a transmit range above 0 stay on the bar. If you are coloring a mob or an armour stand, give it a transmit range as well; see the Minecraft Locator Bar range page for the exact attribute commands.

Why a color override cannot make a hidden player visible

Hiding on the Locator Bar is not a separate visibility flag — it works by multiplying the player's waypoint_transmit_range attribute by zero, through named attribute modifiers:

minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range_crouch — applied when a player starts sneaking, removed when they stop. Operation add_multiplied_total, amount -1.0.
minecraft:effect.waypoint_transmit_range_hide — applied by the Invisibility effect. Same operation and amount.
minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range_hide — applied by head-slot items: the carved pumpkin, skeleton skull, wither skeleton skull, player head, zombie head, creeper head, dragon head, and piglin head.

Because these are multiplicative modifiers on the range rather than on the color, no /waypoint modify call can override them. A sneaking player with a bright custom hex color is still invisible. This is also why "I set the color and it still does not show" is usually a hiding problem rather than a color problem.

Giving a whole party distinct colors

Two UUID-derived colors can land close enough together to be useless in a fight. A workable routine for events:

Run every participant through the locator bar color checker and look for pairs that sit near each other in hue.
For colliding pairs only, assign an explicit hex far from both, using /waypoint modify NAME color hex RRGGBB.
Or skip per-player work entirely and put each squad on a team with a distinct named color, which also colors their names in chat and the Tab list.

Team colors are the more maintainable choice for anything that runs more than once, because a player who rejoins is still on the team, whereas a per-entity command has to be reissued for any target that is not a player.

Changing the icon, not just the color

Color is one of two things /waypoint modify can change. The other is style:

/waypoint modify <waypoint> style set <style>
/waypoint modify <waypoint> style reset

A style comes from the waypoint_style/ directory of a resource pack and controls the icon sprite set plus the distances at which the icon shrinks. The vanilla default uses near_distance 128 and far_distance 332, with sprites resolved under hud/locator_bar_dot/. The game does not check that the style you name exists, so a typo gives you the missing-texture square rather than an error message.

Bedrock Edition: you cannot change the color

There is no /waypoint command on Bedrock, no color argument, and no team color feed into the Locator Bar. The color is assigned randomly to each player at every session.

The one exception is content creation. From Bedrock 26.30, the @minecraft/server scripting API exposes player.locatorBar and a Waypoint class hierarchy where a waypoint carries its own color as normalized red/green/blue values. That is an add-on and Marketplace author's tool, not something a player types into chat. The details are on the Minecraft Locator Bar Bedrock page.

When the color you set does not show up

Work through these in order:

Check the edition and version. /waypoint needs Java Edition 1.21.6 or newer.
Check permissions. Permission level 2 and cheats enabled.
Check the selector. It must resolve to exactly one entity — add limit=1.
Check the color spelling. On 26.2 and later, lowercase with underscores only.
Check that the target transmits. A mob with waypoint_transmit_range at 0 will never appear regardless of color.
Check your own receive range. If your waypoint_receive_range is 0, your Locator Bar shows nothing at all.
Check the gamerule. If the Locator Bar gamerule is off, there is no bar to color and existing waypoints are cleared.
Check for a team. A team color explains a color you did not choose; an explicit command color explains one that ignores your team.
Check whether the player is hidden. Sneaking, a head-slot item such as a carved pumpkin or any mob head, and the Invisibility effect all zero out transmission through attribute modifiers.

Frequently asked questions

Can a normal player change their own Locator Bar color? Not without operator rights. /waypoint requires permission level 2, so on a public server only staff can change colors. Joining a colored team is the usual player-facing route, and that is also operator-configured.

Is there a client setting or a resource pack that recolors the bar? A resource pack can change the icon sprites through waypoint_style, but not the color — color is server-side data on the entity.

Do I have to redo the command every time the player rejoins? No for players, whose waypoints are always tracked. For mobs and armour stands, keep a transmit range above 0 or the tracking lapses at reload.

Why do two players look like they have the same color? UUID-derived colors are spread across the full RGB range but nothing stops two of them from landing close together. Run both names through the locator bar color checker before an event, and assign an explicit hex or a team color to whichever pair collides.

Does the color also change the player's name color in chat? Only if you used a team. Team color affects chat, the name above the head, the Tab list, and the sidebar as well as the Locator Bar. /waypoint modify touches the Locator Bar marker alone.

What does the color look like in /waypoint list? Entries print in the waypoint's assigned color, and entries with no explicit color print as white — even when the marker on the bar is not white.