Variant Swap
by Dooji
Variant Swap lets a player cycle through the variants of a held block or item with a key and the mouse wheel, without opening a menu.
What it does
Holding the default Z key and scrolling the mouse wheel changes the held item to the next or previous variant. A preview at the top of the screen shows the items before and after the selected one for a few seconds. In Creative mode the cycle covers every available variant, while in Survival mode it only shows the items the player actually has. Both vanilla and modded items work.
Variants are grouped by tags. A server owner or modder can tag items with variant swap:oak, variant swap:spruce or any other name, so that every furniture piece of one wood type, for instance chairs, stays together in one cycle. The mod runs on Fabric, is client and server, and is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only, so it is open source.
Settings sit in config.json. The variant-swap command sets the operator level required to use it (level 4 by default, and servers are advised to pick the level they want), and a scroll delay of 50 ms by default that throttles scrolling and can be reset to its default value at any time. The mod is published across 11 release versions, with snapshot builds also available.
Key features
Key-based variant cycling
A customizable key, Z by default, switches the held item through its variants with the scroll wheel.
Preview of neighbouring variants
The top of the screen shows the items before and after the selected one for a few seconds.
Creative and Survival behaviour
Creative mode cycles through all available variants, while Survival mode shows only the items in the player's inventory.
Tag-based grouping
Items tagged with variant swap categories, such as oak or spruce, are cycled together.
Command and config options
A variant-swap command resets the scroll delay, and config.json holds the operator level and delay settings.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
1.21.x6 of 6 versions with builds
1.20.x5 of 5 versions with builds
This mod also publishes snapshot builds. Snapshots are not shown in the matrix.
How it compares
Spacial Swap is open source under the MIT License and targets 1.21.4 only, with client and server files. Tooltip Scrolling is client-side only, covers 1.20.1 – 1.20.6 and is not open source under All rights reserved. Hotbar Swap Mod is client-side only for 1.21.4 – 1.21.11 and is not open source either. Variant Swap is open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only and runs on both client and server.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Variant Swap | Fabric | 1.20 – 1.21.5 | Client and server | 2025-03-28 |
| Spacial Swap | Fabric | 1.21.4 | Client and server | 2025-03-09 |
| Tooltip Scrolling | Fabric | 1.20.1 – 1.20.6 | Client-side only | 2025-02-02 |
| Hotbar Swap Mod | Fabric | 1.21.4 – 1.21.11 | Client-side only | 2026-05-08 |
Questions
Does Variant Swap need to be installed on the server?
Which Minecraft versions does Variant Swap support?
How are variants grouped together?
In the catalog
Variant Swap is one of 8,016 Management mods on ModsFinder, and one of 5,930 Management mods for Fabric. 15,307 mods support Minecraft 1.21.5.
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What the author says
Variant Swap is a mod that lets you change the variant of the item you're holding by using a customizable key (Z by default) and scrolling. When you scroll, you'll also see at the top of the screen a quick preview of what's before and after the selected item (for a few seconds). In Creative mode, you can switch…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/variant-swap
- Owner
- Dooji
- Published
- 2025-03-12
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2025-03-28
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15