Minecraft Locator Bar on Bedrock: What Works and What Does Not

Bedrock has had the Locator Bar since 1.21.90. How to switch it on, the playerWaypoints rule that replaced locatorbar in 26.30, and what differs from Java.

最近更新: 2026-07-23

Yes, Bedrock Edition has the Locator Bar. It arrived in the same drop as the Java version — "Chase the Skies", released 17 June 2025 — as Bedrock 1.21.90. It first appeared behind an experimental toggle in Preview 1.21.80.20 and became a normal, non-experimental feature in Preview 1.21.90.23.

What Bedrock does not have is the Java command surface. There is no /waypoint command, no waypoint_transmit_range attribute, and no UUID-derived color. Bedrock instead has a single game rule, a world-creation toggle, and — since 26.30 — a full scripting API that lets add-on authors do things Java commands cannot. This page separates the three.

How to turn the Locator Bar on or off in Bedrock

The switch has changed name once, so check your version first.

Bedrock 26.30 and later (26.30 "Chaos Cubed" released 16 June 2026) uses the playerWaypoints game rule:

/gamerule playerwaypoints everyone
/gamerule playerwaypoints off

everyone means all players are visible on the Locator Bar; off means no players are shown. everyone is the default. Bedrock game rule arguments are case-insensitive when typed, so playerwaypoints and playerWaypoints both work — Microsoft's creator documentation spells it playerwaypoints in the command signature. /gamerule on Bedrock needs the Game Directors permission level but does not require cheats.

In the interface, the toggle lives in the Multiplayer tab of the Create New World and Edit World screens. In 26.30 the old "Locator Bar" toggle there was replaced with a Player Waypoints setting offering the same Off and Everyone choices, and Preview 26.30.29 renamed the game setting label to match.

Bedrock 1.21.90 through 26.2x used a boolean game rule instead:

/gamerule locatorbar true
/gamerule locatorbar false

That rule was removed in 26.30. Existing worlds migrate automatically: locatorbar true becomes playerWaypoints everyone, and locatorbar false becomes playerWaypoints off. You do not need to do anything to an old world, but any command block, function, or server script that still sets locatorbar will fail on 26.30 and later.

Java's equivalent switch has its own naming history, covered on the Minecraft Locator Bar gamerule page.

How the Bedrock Locator Bar behaves

From the official 1.21.90 notes:

It is a HUD element that shows the direction of other players in the world.
With multiple players in a world, the Locator Bar replaces the Experience Bar. The player level number stays visible above the bar.
Colored indicators appear when the camera faces within 120 degrees of another player.
If another player is more than 30 degrees above or below the camera viewport, an up or down arrow appears with the indicator. This threshold was later changed so that the vertical angle corresponds to the player's field-of-view setting.
Crouching hides a player from other players' Locator Bars.
A mob head or a carved pumpkin worn in the head slot hides a player.
A Potion of Invisibility hides a player.
Players in Spectator Mode are not visible on the Locator Bar; spectators are visible to each other.
Closing an anvil or an enchanting table shows the Experience Bar for 5 seconds instead of the Locator Bar.

Bedrock also fixed an early range problem: in Preview 1.21.80.21, player dots were changed to show correctly regardless of simulation distance.

The five real differences from Java

1. Colors are random per session, not derived from UUID

This is the difference that matters most. In Java, a waypoint's color is derived from the entity's UUID, so it is stable forever and can be predicted before you join a world — which is what the locator bar color finder does. On Bedrock, the color is assigned randomly to the player at every session. Rejoin the world and you may get a different color.

No lookup tool can predict a Bedrock color, and any site that claims to is guessing. If a stable color matters for your server, you need Java.

2. There is no `/waypoint` command

/waypoint is Java Edition exclusive. Bedrock has no chat command that recolors, restyles, lists, or resets a waypoint. See the Minecraft waypoint command reference for what Java operators get.

3. There are no waypoint range attributes

Java's waypoint_transmit_range and waypoint_receive_range do not exist on Bedrock. There is no per-player radar radius, no way to let one player see 150 blocks and another 40, and no way to switch off just your own bar without switching it off for the world. The Java options are documented on the Minecraft Locator Bar range page.

4. There is no team color feed

Java overrides the default marker color with the entity's team color. Bedrock's scoreboard has no equivalent hook into the Locator Bar.

5. Add-ons can do things Java cannot

Bedrock's compensation is the scripting API, and it is more capable than the Java command set in one important way: it can place a waypoint at a fixed coordinate.

The Bedrock scripting API for add-on authors

The Locator Bar scripting surface entered beta in Preview 26.10.25 and was released to stable @minecraft/server v2.8.0 with Bedrock 26.30. The pieces:

player.locatorBar — a LocatorBar instance managing the collection of waypoints displayed on that player's bar. It exposes count and maxCount (read-only numbers), plus addWaypoint, removeWaypoint, removeAllWaypoints, hasWaypoint, and getAllWaypoints.
Waypoint — the base class for waypoints on the bar.
EntityWaypoint — tracks an entity's position.
PlayerWaypoint — tracks a player's position with player-specific visibility rules.
LocationWaypoint — points at a fixed location in the world. This has no Java command equivalent at all; in Java you fake it with an armour stand.
WaypointTexture — an enum of icon textures.
WaypointTextureBounds and WaypointTextureSelector — define which texture is used at which distance range.
EntityVisibilityRules and PlayerVisibilityRules — control waypoint visibility based on entity or player state.
LocatorBarError, LocatorBarErrorReason, InvalidWaypointError, InvalidWaypointTextureSelectorError — the error surface.

Two constraints from Microsoft's own documentation are worth internalising before you build anything on it. A pack can only modify, remove, or query waypoints that it added. And invalid waypoints — including ones tied to entities that have been removed from the world — are cleared automatically on the next tick.

Microsoft's reference example creates one LocationWaypoint and adds it to two players' bars, so that changing its color updates it for both at once. Colors in the API are given as normalized red, green, and blue components rather than hex strings.

The `hides_player_location` item component

Bedrock 1.21.90 also extended the minecraft:wearable item component so custom equipment can hide a player the way a carved pumpkin does. The new hides_player_location boolean controls whether players are hidden on the Locator Bar and Locator Maps when the item is equipped in the slot named by the component's slot field. It defaults to false, and every previously defined minecraft:wearable component keeps that default.

Bedrock version timeline

Preview 1.21.80.20 — Locator Bar added behind its own experimental toggle.
Preview 1.21.80.21 — player dots now show correctly regardless of simulation distance.
Preview 1.21.80.22 — spectators are now shown to other spectators on the Locator Bar.
Preview 1.21.80.25 — the locatorBar game rule added.
Preview 1.21.90.23 — the Locator Bar leaves experiments; the game rule is available without experiments.
Bedrock 1.21.90 "Chase the Skies", released 17 June 2025 — first full release with the Locator Bar. Also extends minecraft:wearable with hides_player_location.
Preview 26.10.25 — the Locator Bar scripting API enters beta.
Preview 26.30.20 — locatorbar removed, playerWaypoints added with automatic migration.
Preview 26.30.29 — the "Locator bar" game setting label replaced by "Player waypoints".
Bedrock 26.30 "Chaos Cubed", released 16 June 2026 — all of the above ships, and the scripting classes graduate from beta to @minecraft/server v2.8.0.

Which version do I need?

Locator Bar at all: Bedrock 1.21.90 or later (or Preview 1.21.80.20 with the experimental toggle on).
playerWaypoints game rule: Bedrock 26.30 or later.
locatorbar game rule: Bedrock 1.21.90 through 26.2x only; removed in 26.30.
Stable scripting API: @minecraft/server v2.8.0, shipped with Bedrock 26.30.
hides_player_location: Bedrock 1.21.90 or later.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Locator Bar work on Bedrock Realms and servers? Yes. It is a normal world feature governed by the world's game rule, so it applies on Realms, dedicated servers, and local worlds alike.

Does Bedrock's Locator Bar work in single player? There is nothing to show. It displays other players, so a solo world keeps the Experience Bar.

Why does my color keep changing on Bedrock? Because it is meant to. Bedrock assigns the color randomly per session rather than deriving it from your UUID.

Can I change my Locator Bar color on Bedrock? Not as a player. Only an add-on using the scripting API can set a waypoint color, and only for waypoints that the add-on created.

Why did /gamerule locatorbar false stop working? The rule was removed in 26.30 and replaced by playerWaypoints. Use /gamerule playerwaypoints off.

Does the Locator Bar appear on cross-play with Java players? Cross-play between Java and Bedrock is not a vanilla feature, so this only arises with third-party proxies. Behaviour there depends on the proxy, not on either edition.

Is there a Bedrock equivalent of Java's waypoint range attributes? No. The closest is the scripting API's visibility rules, which is an add-on tool rather than a player or operator setting.