NeatSort

Chest and inventory sorting for Paper servers — built so that a Minecraft update cannot break it.

Tested on Paper 1.21.11, 26.2 and 26.3. One file, no dependencies.

Why this exists

ChestSort is the reference plugin for this job — 299,530 downloads, 4.7 stars. Its last release is from October 2024. We downloaded that release and started it ourselves on both current Paper versions:

• on Paper 1.21.11 it still works,
• on Paper 26.2 it fails to enable: java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError → NumberFormatException: For input string: "build", thrown from its bundled helper library while parsing the server version string.

It did not die in its sorting logic. It died in a version parser.

NeatSort is built to make that failure mode impossible:

• no bundled libraries, no NMS, no reflection into the server
• the server version string is never read or parsed
• no reference to any Material or Tag constant in the categoriser — items are grouped from Material.name() and the plain Bukkit predicates, so a material added by a future Minecraft version falls into a catch-all category instead of throwing. This is verified on every build: the test asserts that categorisation holds for every material the server knows — 1,658 on Paper 1.21.11 and 1,691 on Paper 26.2.

The guarantee no other sorter gives

The worst thing a sorting plugin can do is lose a stack.

NeatSort builds the sorted layout in memory, counts every item type in the old and the new layout, and only writes if both counts match exactly. If a single item would go missing, nothing is written at all: the container is left untouched, the console logs a warning, and the player is told. Unsorted beats one stack short.

Features

• Sorts chests, barrels, shulker boxes and ender chests on close (per-player toggle)
• Sorts the player inventory (hotbar excluded by default — your sword stays where you put it)
• Middle-click inside an open container to sort it
• Merges partial stacks, respects stack limits, keeps named and enchanted items distinct
• Per-player settings persist across restarts
• Per-world disable list
• Only touches plain storage containers — never furnaces, brewing stands, anvils or inventories held by another plugin (configurable blocklist for backpack, vault and crate plugins)

Coming from ChestSort?

/neatsort import

Reads plugins/ChestSort/config.yml and takes over the settings that have an equivalent here (auto-sort toggles, defaults, hotkeys, cooldown, disabled worlds). Your ChestSort file is read only, never modified. What cannot be carried over is reported instead of silently dropped — ChestSort's category text files and its sorting-method string have no counterpart, because NeatSort sorts by a fixed, version-proof rule rather than by editable material lists.

Commands

Command	Meaning
/neatsort	show your current settings
/neatsort on / off / toggle	auto-sort containers on close
/neatsort inv	sort your inventory now
/neatsort inv on / off / toggle	auto-sort your inventory
/neatsort reload	reload the config
/neatsort import	take over a ChestSort configuration
/neatsort resetplayers	clear all player settings

Alias: /nsort.

Permissions: neatsort.use, neatsort.inventory, neatsort.hotkey (all default true), neatsort.admin (op).

Honest comparison

ChestSort has more features than this: a settings GUI, editable category files, hooks into a dozen other plugins, additional hotkeys. If you run Paper 1.21.x and those matter to you, ChestSort still works there and is the richer plugin.

NeatSort is for servers that want sorting to keep working on the day a new Minecraft version lands.

Development note

This plugin was developed with AI assistance (human-led: requirements, testing and release decisions by the maintainer). It is tested on live Paper servers before every release — the run for 0.1.0 asserted 29 runtime properties on Paper 1.21.11 and Paper 26.2, alongside 14 other plugins, with zero errors.

MIT licensed.

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Human-led development: a human maintainer directs, tests and takes responsibility for every release; AI is used as a development tool (disclosed per Modrinth policy). The icon is hand-made geometric artwork, not AI-generated.