Recolors the target's dot on the locator bar: a named team color, an exact hex value, or back to the automatic color.
The entity whose locator bar dot changes. It must be transmitting a waypoint when the command runs: players always are, mobs only after you raise their waypoint_transmit_range attribute.
The 16 named colors are the same set used by team colors and chat formatting. For anything in between, switch to Hex color.
Recolors the target's dot on every player's locator bar. The target must currently be transmitted as a waypoint; players are by default. Needs permission level 2.
Mobs do not show on the locator bar by default. To track one, raise its transmit range first, for example /attribute @e[type=allay,limit=1] minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 60000000, then recolor it here.
/waypoint manages the locator bar, the row of colored dots that replaced the experience bar slot in Java 1.21.6 and points every player toward the others. The command lists the waypoints the bar is tracking and changes how a single entity's dot looks: its color, set by name or exact hex value, and its style.
The command has two halves. /waypoint list is a diagnostic: it prints every waypoint currently transmitted in the world, which is the quickest way to confirm whether an entity is on the bar at all. /waypoint modify takes one entity and changes its dot. The color branch accepts one of the 16 named team colors, an exact hex value of six hexadecimal digits, or reset to return to the automatic color. The style branch sets a waypoint style by resource location or resets it to the default dot.
Like most game-master commands, /waypoint requires permission level 2: cheats enabled in singleplayer, operator status on a server, or a command block or datapack function. The entity argument must resolve to exactly one entity that is currently transmitting a waypoint; players always are, which is why the generator above warns when an @a or @e selector is missing limit=1.
The syntax has not changed since the command was added in 1.21.6, so the same generated command works in every version from 1.21.6 to the current release.
Copy any of these as a starting point, or rebuild them in the generator above:
/waypoint listPrints every waypoint the locator bar is tracking in this world, with its owner, color and style./waypoint modify @s color redTurns your own dot red on every other player's locator bar./waypoint modify Steve color hex 00E5B8Gives the player Steve's dot an exact RGB color. Six hex digits, no # sign./waypoint modify @a[team=red,limit=1] color dark_redRecolors one member of the red team. The selector needs limit=1 because the argument takes a single entity./waypoint modify @s style set minecraft:bowtieDraws your dot with the bowtie sprite, the only alternate style that ships with vanilla./waypoint modify @p color resetReturns the nearest player's dot to the automatic color the game derived from their UUID.The locator bar arrived in Java 1.21.6 as a built-in answer to "where is everyone?" on multiplayer worlds. It sits in the HUD slot the experience bar used to own and shows one colored dot per player in the direction you would have to turn to face them; the experience bar takes the slot back temporarily while your XP changes. When you get close to someone, their dot gains an up or down arrow if they are above or below you, which makes it usable even in caves and big builds.
Under the hood the bar runs on waypoints, and two attributes control them. waypoint_transmit_range decides how far an entity broadcasts its position, and waypoint_receive_range decides how far away a player can pick broadcasts up. Players transmit by default; everything else has a transmit range of zero. That means you can put any entity on the bar with one command, such as /attribute @e[type=happy_ghast,limit=1] minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 60000000, and then color it with /waypoint modify like any player dot. Sneaking suppresses a player's own transmission, so crouching is the vanilla way to go dark.
By default every player's dot gets a color derived from their UUID, so colors are stable but arbitrary. /waypoint is how map makers and server admins take control of that: matching dots to team colors, hex-matching a faction palette, or giving a quest NPC the bowtie style so it stands out from players. The whole feature can be switched off per world with /gamerule locatorBar false, which hides the bar and brings the experience bar back full time.
The /waypoint command, added to Java Edition in 1.21.6 together with the locator bar, manages the colored dots that bar shows. /waypoint list prints every waypoint currently being tracked, and /waypoint modify changes how one entity's dot looks: a named color (/waypoint modify @s color red), an exact hex color (/waypoint modify @s color hex 00E5B8), or a different style (/waypoint modify @s style set minecraft:bowtie). It needs permission level 2, so cheats, an operator, a command block or a function.
Run /waypoint modify @s color followed by one of the 16 named team colors, for example /waypoint modify @s color red. For an exact shade use the hex form: /waypoint modify @s color hex FF8800, with six hexadecimal digits and no # sign. The change applies to your dot on every other player's locator bar, and /waypoint modify @s color reset returns it to the automatic color the game picked for you.
Run /gamerule locatorBar false to disable the bar for the whole world; set it back to true to re-enable it. There is no per-player toggle in vanilla. Individual players can stay off other people's bars by sneaking, which stops their waypoint from being transmitted, and when the bar has nothing to show the experience bar is displayed as normal.
The target of /waypoint modify must currently be transmitting a waypoint. Players transmit by default, but mobs and other entities do not, so selecting one fails until you give it a transmit range, for example /attribute @e[type=allay,limit=1] minecraft:waypoint_transmit_range base set 60000000. Also check the selector itself: the argument is single-entity, so @a and @e only parse with limit=1.
Vanilla ships exactly two: minecraft:default, the normal dot, and minecraft:bowtie, a bowtie shape. You switch between them with /waypoint modify <target> style set <style> and go back with style reset. Resource packs can add their own styles under assets/<namespace>/waypoint_style/, and any of those ids works in the same command.
Java Edition 1.21.6, the Chase the Skies drop released in June 2025, which also introduced the locator bar itself and the happy ghast. The syntax has not changed since, so commands from this generator work in 1.21.6 and every later version. Bedrock Edition has its own locator bar but no /waypoint command, so dots there keep their automatic colors.
Need to find places, not players? Or browse more Minecraft tools: