How to paste a schematic in Litematica

Litematica’s paste mode drops a whole loaded schematic into the world in one go. It is a Creative operation, it runs from a tool mode rather than a menu button, and it needs a selected placement and a bound hotkey. This page walks through the order that works.

1. Switch to Creative mode. Paste will not run in survival, even if you picked the mode while in creative.
2. Load the schematic and make a placement, then select that placement (light cyan outline).
3. Hold the tool item (a stick by default) and switch the tool mode to Paste schematic in world.
4. Check the pasteReplaceBehavior setting so you know what gets overwritten.
5. Press the executeOperation hotkey. It ships empty, so bind a chord first.

Paste versus building from the hologram

By default Litematica shows a schematic as a ghost you build by hand, block by block, with real items. That is the survival workflow, and the material list tells you what to carry. Paste is the other workflow: no items, no hologram to follow, the blocks simply appear. It is meant for Creative worlds, test worlds, and servers where you hold the right command permissions. If you only want to see the shape first, stay on the hologram and use layer mode.

What you need before the key does anything

• Creative mode. The mod refuses to execute outside Creative.
• The tool HUD on screen. It sits at the bottom left. If it is missing, the tool item is toggled off (M+T), all rendering is off (M+R), or you are holding something other than the configured tool item. The default is minecraft:stick. executeRequireHoldingTool is on by default; turn it off in the Generic tab if you do not want to hold the item.
• The right placement selected. Click it in the Schematic Placements list (M+P) so it gets the white outline, or look at it in the world and middle-click with the tool in hand. The selected placement is drawn in light cyan and named on the HUD.
• A bound executeOperation key. It is empty by default on the 1.21.4 branch. Open M+C, go to Hotkeys, find executeOperation, and click the field to assign a chord. See Litematica hotkeys for where the other defaults live.

Switching to paste mode

There are two ways. Use the mode button at the bottom left of the Litematica menu (M), or hold the tool item and Ctrl+scroll through the modes until the HUD reads Paste schematic in world. Once the HUD shows it, the next press of your executeOperation chord starts the paste. If you also use Edit Schematic mode, get out of it first; the two modes share the same scroll wheel.

Choose the replace behavior first

pasteReplaceBehavior (Generic tab) has three values. None only fills positions that are currently air, and it is the default. With non-air lets solid schematic blocks overwrite what is there but leaves the schematic’s own air alone, so a basement does not carve a hole under your lake. All places everything including air. Pick the one that matches what you are about to destroy, because paste is not an undo-friendly operation. Take a world backup or paste into a copy.

Singleplayer, servers, and what survives

In a singleplayer world the paste runs on the integrated server, so block entity data, entities and scheduled ticks stored in the file are restored. On a multiplayer server the mod has to go through commands, which is slower, rate limited, and does not carry inventory contents unless extra options are set. What can be restored also depends on how the schematic was saved. A file saved from a remote server has empty chests to begin with. More on that in how to create a Litematica schematic. For server specifics, see Litematica on a server and loading a schematic on a server.

If you would rather use WorldEdit’s own clipboard, the comparison is on Litematica vs WorldEdit, and a .schem export is covered by the WorldEdit import guide.

Paste a build from the generator

A file from the generator is an ordinary .litematic, so the steps above apply as written: put it in .minecraft/schematics, load it, make a placement, enter paste mode. If the placement is facing the wrong way, rotate it before you paste: how to rotate a schematic. Nothing shows after loading? Start with schematic not showing.

Generate a .litematic

Companion note: Paste or build? Two ways to use a litematic and when each one fits (short version on Telegraph).

Reviewed 2026-10-02. Not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft.