What It Does
Chat Tools is a client-side mod for Minecraft that gives you more control over your chat window. It doesn't touch the server, so you install it on your own game and it works alongside whatever server you join. The mod runs on both Fabric and NeoForge, and it's built by 70CentsApple under the GPLv3 license, with the code open on GitHub for anyone to read.
Who It's For
If you play on a lot of different servers and want your chat to behave the same way everywhere, this is for you. It also helps if you talk to people who don't speak your language, or if you keep missing important messages in a busy chat window.
Main Features
Chat Tools adds a timestamp to every message you see, so you know exactly when something was said. A Restore Messages option pulls back chat from your last session, useful if you close the game mid conversation. Press Shift+Tab in the chat bar and you get a built-in translator. Need to find something someone said an hour ago? Ctrl+F opens a chat history navigator, and you can set how many messages the mod keeps with the max history length option.
The notifier settings cover toast pop-ups, custom sound alerts, actionbar messages, and highlight prefixes you define yourself. An allow list and a ban list decide which messages trigger these alerts, and the ban list wins if both match. There's also a Nickname Hider that keeps your own username off your screen, and formatter settings that let you write pattern-based rules to restyle messages, with different rules for different servers.
Everything can be run through chat commands too. /chattools on and off toggle the mod, opengui opens the settings page, and download pulls in addons. Real talk, there's a regex_checker command for testing patterns, send_to_client for pushing text straight into your chat bar or actionbar, and a set of config commands for reading, setting, and toggling individual options without leaving the game.
Compatibility
Chat Tools supports Fabric and NeoForge, and it needs to be installed on the client only, not the server. Its Modrinth listing covers 1.16 through 1.16.5, 1.17 and 1.17.1, 1.18 through 1.18.2, 1.19 through 1.19.4, and 1.20 through 1.20.6, each version listed on its own rather than as one continuous range. Its GitHub repository shows the project is still being maintained, with recent updates including a Ctrl-C shortcut for opening the copy menu.
