If you're trying Valheim mods for the first time, I'd start by looking at AzuCraftyBoxes, ExtraSlots and PlantEasily. They let you craft using materials in nearby chests, give equipment and supplies their own inventory slots, and make planting a field much less repetitive.
Those are useful places to start because you encounter them throughout a playthrough. You can have a neatly organized workshop and still spend time fetching materials before every crafting job. Pack your weapons, food and tools for an expedition, and a fair amount of your inventory is already spoken for.
The ten mods below focus on everyday convenience and building on PC, with a few options for changing transport and death penalties. Pick the changes that would help your current world. If you're playing with friends, it's worth agreeing on the bigger rule changes before everyone installs them.
On this page
Choose a mod for the part of the game you want to change
| What you'd like to improve | Mod to consider |
|---|---|
| Fetching materials from chests before crafting or building | AzuCraftyBoxes |
| Equipment, food and ammunition taking up inventory space | ExtraSlots |
| Planting crops individually and getting the spacing right | PlantEasily |
| Growing berries, mushrooms and more plants at your base | PlantEverything |
| Planning a build or saving an existing structure as a blueprint | PlanBuild |
| Rotating building pieces into the position you want | Gizmo |
| Rain damage on exposed wooden structures | NoRainDamage |
| Increasing carry weight as your character develops | PackHorse |
| Transporting ore, animals and carts through portals | TeleportEverything |
| Keeping your items after death and reducing corpse runs | ZenPlayer |
AzuCraftyBoxes: craft with materials still in storage
A well-organized workshop makes this mod particularly easy to appreciate.
AzuCraftyBoxes lets crafting and building use resources from nearby containers. Your wood, stone and metal can stay in their chests until you need them; the mod takes the required materials from eligible containers within its configured range.
I'd put it near the top of a first mod list because it fits into the way you already play. You still gather supplies and decide where to store them, with fewer trips between your chests and workstations. It's especially useful if you spend a lot of time expanding a base or making equipment for a group.
Start with a range that covers your workshop. You can also restrict which materials are available to crafting, which helps when you have supplies set aside for another project.
Our guide to crafting from nearby chests covers this feature in more detail.
ExtraSlots: make room for equipment and everyday supplies
Some items come with you on almost every trip. Armor, food, arrows and keys all need space before you collect any resources or loot.
ExtraSlots adds dedicated slots for these items, along with configurable quick slots and additional inventory rows. It also supports unlocking slots as you progress, so you can make the extra space part of your character's development.
I'd start with the equipment, food and ammunition slots before adding lots of ordinary inventory rows. After a few outings, you'll have a better idea of whether you need more room overall or simply better places to keep your essentials.
Check compatibility if you already use another inventory mod. Before removing ExtraSlots, move items out of its additional slots and into ordinary inventory or storage; loading your character without the mod can otherwise make those items disappear.
See our Valheim inventory expansion guide for the available approaches.
PlantEasily: spend less time planting each crop
A small vegetable patch is manageable by hand. A farm supplying several players can involve a lot of repeated clicking and spacing adjustments.
PlantEasily lets you plant in configurable rows and columns with even spacing. It also offers optional bulk harvesting and automatic replanting, provided you have enough seeds.
You can choose how much of that help you want. Start with batch planting if you still enjoy harvesting by hand, then enable replanting if that part becomes repetitive too.
This is a client-only mod; the author specifically says not to install it on a dedicated server. FarmGrid, MassFarming and Farming are listed as incompatible, so choose one system for handling batch planting.
Our guide to planting a whole field at once explains the options.
PlantEverything: grow more of what you gather
PlantEverything is worth considering if you'd like berry bushes in your garden, mushrooms near the house or more plants to decorate a settlement.
It adds cultivator recipes for resources such as berries, mushrooms and thistle, along with additional plants and decorative vegetation. That gives it a practical use for gathering supplies and a creative use for landscaping.
The similar names make PlantEverything and PlantEasily easy to mix up. PlantEverything expands what you can plant; PlantEasily changes how you place and harvest it. You can combine them to plant the added resources in batches.
The resources still take time to regrow. Those timings are configurable, but I'd try the initial settings before speeding everything up. That gives you a chance to decide how much easier you want food and ingredient gathering to become.
PlanBuild: work out the design before gathering every material
A large building project is easier to plan when you can see the whole layout. Discovering that the hall is too narrow or the stairs are in the wrong place gets more frustrating once the walls and roof are finished.
PlanBuild lets you place planned pieces before you have all the resources. You can check the layout, adjust the design and supply materials afterward. Its Plan Totem provides a central place to contribute resources, which is useful when several friends are working on the same project.
You can also save existing structures as blueprints to rebuild elsewhere or share with other players using the mod.
This is the building mod I'd look at first for a larger settlement. It lets you work out the scale of a project before committing to gathering everything. Planned pieces are previews, however, and the finished structure still needs adequate support.
See our guide to saving and copying Valheim buildings for more on blueprints.
Gizmo: get building pieces into the right position
Gizmo becomes more useful as you start paying attention to the finer details of a build. Angled beams, corner roofs and decorative arrangements all benefit from having more control over rotation.
The version linked here is maintained under ComfyMods. It adds X- and Z-axis rotation through modifier keys, with Shift and Alt used by default, and lets you adjust the rotation increments. Its Roof Mode handles corner roof pieces in a way that helps them line up with inclined roofs and beams.
You can leave this one until you need it. Once you're trying to make a particular roof connection work, the extra controls have a clear purpose and are easier to learn.
NoRainDamage: keep exposed wooden builds from weathering
Docks, decks and walkways don't always suit a roof. If you like those open layouts and want to change how rain affects them, NoRainDamage is a focused option.
It lets you prevent rain damage on uncovered structures, adjust the amount of damage or use filters to protect selected building pieces. You can apply it to the parts of a base you care about without having to redesign them around roof coverage.
There is an important multiplayer detail: the author says players in the immediate area also need the mod installed, or rain can still cause damage. Include it in your group's setup if you're using it to maintain a shared base.
PackHorse: build up your carrying capacity
Having free inventory slots doesn't necessarily mean you can carry more. If weight is what keeps sending you home, an inventory layout mod may leave that problem unchanged.
PackHorse adds a skill that increases while you move with a full inventory. As the skill develops, your maximum carry weight rises.
It suits a playthrough where you want to keep a weight limit while giving your character more capacity over time. You do need to earn that improvement, so don't expect installing it to immediately let you carry a huge load.
For other ways to change this part of the game, see our guide to Valheim carry-weight mods.
TeleportEverything: decide how much hauling you want
In a world with ore transport restrictions, bringing metal home takes planning and time. Some groups enjoy the voyage back with a full ship. Others would rather spend more of the evening building or exploring.
TeleportEverything offers controls for transporting ores and ingots, along with animals and carts. You can also charge a transport fee that consumes a percentage of the metal, keeping a cost attached to the convenience.
If you only want to relax item restrictions, check your world's portal settings first; Valheim already provides portal world modifiers. This mod becomes more useful when you also want features such as transport fees, animal travel or cart transport.
Review its settings before using it, since it includes options that let enemies follow you through portals. The author recommends installing it on both the server and clients.
Our guide to taking ore through portals covers the transport question in more detail.
ZenPlayer: keep a death from turning into a long recovery trip
ZenPlayer is worth a look if you enjoy exploring and fighting but dislike preparing a second set of equipment just to recover the first.
It lets you change what drops when you die. Set Drop On Death to None to keep your inventory, and check the Always list if you've configured any items to drop regardless. Installing the mod alone doesn't enable keep-inventory; the setting needs to be changed.
That can make exploration feel much less punishing, particularly when you have limited time to play. It also changes the stakes of an expedition. If your group enjoys the preparation and tension of getting home with valuable loot, discuss how much of that risk you want to keep.
ZenPlayer includes other character settings, including skill loss and food behavior, so check those while setting it up.
Our guide to keeping your items after death explains the setting and the differences between related mods.
Installing your choices
For a first setup, use r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager to create a Valheim profile, install your selected mods and launch the game through the manager. Our installation and configuration guide covers the basics.
Add one or two mods at a time and check their behavior in the game. With ExtraSlots, look at the slots you've enabled. With ZenPlayer, check the death settings. Small changes make it easier to decide what you actually enjoy and what goes further than you'd intended.
For multiplayer, follow each author's installation requirements. A client-only mod, a server-synced setting and a locally hosted game can have different requirements. PlanBuild, for example, documents that a player running the mod cannot join a server without it. Treat each mod's instructions individually when putting together a shared setup.
Frequently asked questions
Which Valheim mods should I install first?
AzuCraftyBoxes, PlantEasily and ExtraSlots are useful starting points. They address three familiar chores: fetching crafting materials, planting crops one at a time, and finding room for your gear. Choose one or two based on what takes up too much of your own playtime. If searching through storage is the main frustration, start with the guide to crafting from nearby chests.
You can add mods such as TeleportEverything or ZenPlayer once you have decided how much you want to change the game's transport and death rules. Fixing one recurring annoyance is a good place to begin.
Can I use the mods on this list together?
Some combinations make sense, but check the pairing. PlantEasily supports plants from PlantEverything, including berry bushes, flowers and mushrooms, while its author lists MassFarming as incompatible.
For other combinations, check each author's compatibility notes. Pay particular attention when two mods change the same feature, such as planting controls or inventory slots.
Does everyone need the same mods for multiplayer?
Not always. PlantEasily runs on the client, so only the player using it needs to install it. Its author specifically says not to install it on a dedicated server.
ZenPlayer's requirements depend on where it is installed. You can use it on your own client while joining a server that does not have it. If the server has ZenPlayer, or the person hosting a local session has it enabled, joining players need it too. Before a group session, check each mod's multiplayer instructions and share the required mods, versions and any settings the group needs to coordinate.
How should I add mods to an existing save?
Back up both your character and your world, then check whether the mods you want have any migration steps or require a new world. After the first load, check your inventory, equipment and base before carrying on with your usual progress. With ExtraSlots, include the additional slots in that check.
Adding mods in small batches makes it easier to spot which change caused a problem. If you need help with the setup, follow the Valheim mod installation and configuration guide, get the basic installation working, and add features from there.
Can I simply uninstall a mod when I no longer want it?
Some mods need preparation before you disable them. With inventory mods such as ExtraSlots, move everything out of the added slots and into the normal inventory or a chest first. The ExtraSlots author warns that items left in those slots will be lost if you load the game without the mod.
Once you have moved the items, back up your character and world, then follow the author's removal instructions. If you are switching to another inventory mod, check for migration steps as well; those instructions can matter just as much as the installation itself.
What should I do if a mod stops working after a Valheim update?
Start by noting when the problem happens: during startup, when loading a save, or when using a particular feature. Check the author's release notes against your versions of Valheim, BepInEx, the affected mod and its dependencies. A mod may need an update for the new game version, in which case reinstalling the same files will not fix the mismatch.
Change one mod or one related set of dependencies at a time so you can tell what helped. If you need to disable something, handle any inventory or save requirements described above first. For a bug report, include your game version, mod version and relevant error messages to help the author narrow down the cause.
The combination I'd start with
For a regular survival playthrough, I'd begin with AzuCraftyBoxes, then add PlantEasily if farming takes up a lot of the group's time or ExtraSlots if everyday supplies are crowding out loot.
For a building project, PlanBuild and Gizmo are worth considering next. PlantEverything adds more options around the settlement, and NoRainDamage helps if exposed wood is part of the design.
PackHorse, TeleportEverything and ZenPlayer depend more on how much hauling and recovery your group wants to keep. Ask everyone for one thing they'd like to change, then choose the changes you can agree on.
You can also describe a more specific request in ModGenie's Valheim search, such as keeping manual harvesting while making planting faster, or keeping equipped items after death while allowing other items to drop. Once you've chosen your mods, you can organize them into an import code for r2modman.
Make an import code
Only these ten. Check the ones you want, then generate an r2modman import code.