Swift Sneak is a Minecraft Java Edition enchantment in the leg armor group, with a maximum level of III. It is treasure-only.
minecraft:swift_sneak
Increases your movement speed while sneaking by 15% of walking speed per level. Normal sneaking crawls at about 30% of walking speed; Swift Sneak III raises that to about 75%.
Tip: Swift Sneak III is made for the deep dark: move between sculk sensors at near-walking pace without triggering them. It goes on leggings, so it never conflicts with your boot enchantments.
Sneaking silences your footsteps and hides your name tag, but the 30% crawl makes it painful — Swift Sneak fixes exactly that. Its home turf is the ancient city, where every sensor you sneak past stays quiet. It is also genuinely useful for PvP flanking and for bridging at build height, where sneaking keeps you from falling off edges. Because it sits on leggings, it stacks with any boot enchantment.
Ancient city chests only — Swift Sneak books appear in about 23% of ancient city chests. It never appears on the enchanting table and villagers do not trade it.
Hold a valid item in your main hand, then run (Java Edition 1.13+; the level is optional and defaults to 1):
This example applies the maximum level III. An anvil combines two matching levels only up to this maximum — higher levels exist only through commands.
Swift Sneak applies to leggings. Items from the reviewed catalog in this group:
Both are mobility enchantments, but different slots and terrains: Depth Strider speeds up swimming on boots, Swift Sneak speeds up sneaking on leggings. They stack — nothing stops you from running both.
Protection IV and Swift Sneak III can share the same leggings — they are not rivals, and the ideal pair of leggings carries both, plus Unbreaking III and Mending. Ancient city runs are the one case where players gladly dedicate leggings to Swift Sneak first.
Bedrock Edition: Swift Sneak works the same in Bedrock Edition and is likewise found only in ancient city chests.
The enchantment ID for Swift Sneak is minecraft:swift_sneak. Java Edition 1.13+ commands such as /enchant use this namespaced form.
Swift Sneak goes up to level III (level 3). Run /enchant @p minecraft:swift_sneak 3 while holding a valid item to apply the maximum level.
No. Swift Sneak is a treasure enchantment found only as a book in ancient city chests (about a 23% chance per chest). Librarian villagers do not trade it either.
Leggings only. It was the first leggings-exclusive enchantment in the game, so it never conflicts with boot enchantments like Depth Strider or Feather Falling.
Yes — it is the intended anti-warden enchantment. Sneaking keeps sculk sensors and the warden from hearing you, and Swift Sneak lets you move at up to 75% of walking speed while doing it.
Effectively yes, but only by looting more ancient city chests — each chest has roughly a 1 in 4 chance of containing a book. You cannot farm it from villagers or the enchanting table.