Minecraft Linked Chests: One Shared Inventory, Hopper Filters and Autocrafting

Link chests and barrels so they share one inventory from anywhere on the server, filter a hopper with an item frame, and turn a crafting table into an autocrafter.

A chest link joins chests and barrels under one name so they share a single inventory. Put an item in any of them and it is in all of them: drop your haul in the chest at the mine, walk home, and it is waiting in the chest by your door. The chests can sit any distance apart, in any world. Linked chests are the base-storage layer of the storage systems on the server.

The same system gives you hopper filters and autocrafters, covered further down.

Link two chests

/chestlink add homeLook at the first chest, within five blocks, and run this. It starts a link called home.
/chestlink add homeGo to the second chest, look at it and run the same command with the same name.
Put items in either chest. Open the other one and they are there.

/cl is short for /chestlink. Pick any name you like; each name is its own link, so home, ores and farm can run side by side.

Prefer not to type? Place a sign on the chest with [ChestLink] on the first line and the link's name in square brackets on the second, such as [home].

How a link works

One shared inventory of 54 slots, the size of a double chest, however many chests you add to it.
Any distance, any world. A chest in the Nether and a chest at your base can share one link.
Items already in a chest join the link when you add it. Anything that does not fit drops on the ground next to the chest.
Chests, trapped chests and barrels can be linked. Shulker boxes can't.
A floating icon above each linked chest shows the item it holds the most of.

Hoppers

Hoppers work with links in both directions. A hopper pointing into a linked chest adds to the shared inventory, and a hopper underneath a linked chest pulls items out of it; power that hopper with redstone to stop it.

That makes a link a way to send items somewhere else: have a farm's hopper feed a linked chest at the farm, and the harvest shows up in the linked chest at home. Hoppers only run while their chunk is loaded, so someone has to be nearby.

Who can open it

A new link is private: only you can open it until you let someone in.

/chestlink member add <link> <player>

Give a player access to one of your links. Use member remove to take it back, and member list to see who has it.

link: the link
player: who to let in

/chestlink setpublic <link> <true|false>

Let anyone open the link, handy for a shared community chest.

link: the link
true|false: open to everyone, or private again

/chestlink party opens a menu for sharing all your links with a group of friends at once.

Managing your links

/chestlink open <link>

Open a link's inventory from wherever you are, no chest needed.

link: the link to open

/chestlink menu lists every link you have.
/chestlink rename <link> <new name> renames one.
/chestlink sort <link> <method> keeps the contents in order: NAME, AMOUNT_DESC, AMOUNT_ASC, or OFF. More on tidying in chest sorting.
Breaking a linked chest takes it out of the link, and its items stay in the link. Mine it with Silk Touch and you get a named chest you can place somewhere else, still linked.

/chestlink remove <link> deletes the whole link and drops every item in it at your feet. Empty it first, or stand somewhere safe.

Hopper filters

Vanilla hoppers take any item. Put an item frame on a hopper with an item inside and the hopper only takes that item: gunpowder only under a creeper farm, bones only under a skeleton farm.

Each right-click on the frame turns the item an eighth of a turn, and the angle sets the rule:

Item in the frame	The hopper takes
As placed	only that item
Two clicks (a quarter turn)	everything except that item
Four clicks (upside down)	that item and similar ones, such as any kind of wood
Six clicks	everything except that item and similar ones

The odd positions (one, three, five or seven clicks) act like the item as placed. Several frames on one hopper combine their rules.

Autocrafters

/autocraft add <name>

Look at a crafting table and run this to turn it into an autocrafter. Alias: /ac.

name: a name for the station

Open the table and lay out the recipe, such as nine iron ingots for an iron block. Containers or hoppers on its top and sides feed it ingredients, and a hopper underneath pulls out what it crafts.

Limits

54 slots per link, but you can make as many links as you want.
Hoppers need loaded chunks. A farm far from any player stops feeding its link until someone comes back.
Protect the room. Nobody can take items out of your private link, but anyone can break the chest blocks outside a claim. Put your storage inside a ward or use a sign lock on individual containers.

Linked chests