How to Stop Items Dropped by Players From Despawning

Why Player Drops Are Special

By default, everything on the ground follows the same despawn clock, which is painful when you die far from home or accidentally toss a valuable stack. The mod includes a dedicated option that protects items dropped by players specifically, keeping them around for death recovery or for handing things to a friend who is on the way.

Enabling the Protection

Open the generated config file and locate the player item protection setting. Toggle it on, save the file, then run /cdt reload so the change applies without quitting. From that point on, any item a player throws on the ground is exempt from the normal despawn timer and will stay in the world until picked up or removed manually.

Combining With Per-Item Rules

If you want finer control, the config also lists individual item names where you can assign a specific lifespan. The values work like this: -1 means the item follows the global setting, 0 means it never despawns, and any positive number is a custom tick count just for that item. This lets you keep player drops safe globally while still letting, say, cobblestone from a mining trip vanish on schedule. Test your setup by dropping a stack, waiting past the normal timer, and confirming it is still there. If something disappears unexpectedly, double-check that you saved the file before reloading.