Glowing Tools is a Minecraft mod that adds a simple way to light up dark areas while mining or exploring. Instead of taking off your shield or relying on fullbright mods, you can turn ordinary tools into light sources. The mod works by combining any vanilla tool with a torch in the crafting grid. This result is a glowing version of that tool that emits light when held. This light works the same way as placing a torch in the world, brightening your immediate surroundings.
The glowing tools retain all the properties of their vanilla counterparts. Durability, enchantments, and custom names function exactly as they would on the original item. You can use a glowing pickaxe to mine stone, a glowing axe to chop wood, or a glowing sword to fight mobs, all while benefiting from the added light. The mod also supports upgrading glowing diamond tools to glowing netherite tools using a smithing table, preserving the glowing effect through the upgrade.
Beyond holding the tool, you can interact with torches in new ways. By sneaking and right-clicking on a solid block with a torch from your inventory, you can place it directly into the world. Similarly, sneaking and right-clicking on an already placed torch with any tool will pick it up. If you use a vanilla tool to pick up a torch, that tool becomes a glowing tool - though this process resets item data such as durability, enchantments, and custom names.
The mod requires LambDynamicLights for Fabric users or DynamicLights Reforged for Forge users to function. Without one of these dependencies, the glowing tools won't emit light. It's designed for both client and server installation, meaning it must be present on all machines in a multiplayer session for the feature to work correctly. Glowing Tools supports Minecraft versions 1.19.2, 1.20.1, 1.20.2, and 1.20.4, and is available exclusively for the Fabric and Forge mod loaders.
Known limitations include the reset of durability, enchantments, and custom names when crafting glowing tools or interacting with torches via sneak right-click. Look, and legacy textures may not display the glowing effect correctly due to how the durability bar is rendered, though this is marked as "Won't fix" by the author. Torch placement is restricted to solid blocks, which aligns with standard torch behavior in Minecraft.
The mod includes an optional legacy resource pack for users who prefer a more subtle visual style over the default torch-on-tool appearance. Translations are available in English (US), Lolcat, and Chinese, with community contributions welcome for additional languages.
