/tellraw

Sends a JSON-formatted message to players. Supports clickable text, hover events, colors, formatting, and score/selector insertion.

Overview

Sends a JSON-formatted message to players. Supports clickable text, hover events, colors, formatting, and score/selector insertion. In vanilla Minecraft Java Edition it is one of the display commands and has been available since version 1.7.

It is invoked as /tellraw and accepts 2 required arguments ( and ).

Text components support: text, color, bold, italic, underlined, strikethrough, obfuscated, clickEvent, hoverEvent, insertion, selector, score, nbt, translate, and keybind.

The message is a JSON text component, so it supports color, formatting, clickEvent, hoverEvent, insertion and live score/selector/nbt values that plain /say and /msg cannot.

Syntax & Arguments

/tellraw <targets> <message>

The full syntax is /tellraw . Angle brackets < > mark required arguments and square brackets [ ] mark optional ones; a vertical bar | between words means you pick exactly one of those literals. You must always supply and .

targets: Required, of type an entity. The player(s) to send the message to.
message: Required, of type a component. A JSON text component defining the message, formatting, and interactive elements.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
targets	entity	Required	The player(s) to send the message to.
message	component	Required	A JSON text component defining the message, formatting, and interactive elements.

Examples

The 3 examples below are ready to copy and adapt. For instance, /tellraw @a {"text":"Click here!","color":"green","clickEvent":{"action":"run_command","value":"/spawn"},"hoverEvent":{"action":"show_text","contents":"Click to teleport to spawn"}} sends a green clickable message that runs /spawn when clicked and shows hover text. Each example varies the arguments to show a different real use of /tellraw; read the note under every snippet to see exactly what changes.

/tellraw @a {"text":"Click here!","color":"green","clickEvent":{"action":"run_command","value":"/spawn"},"hoverEvent":{"action":"show_text","contents":"Click to teleport to spawn"}}

Sends a green clickable message that runs /spawn when clicked and shows hover text.

/tellraw @a [{"text":"Score: ","color":"white"},{"score":{"name":"@s","objective":"kills"},"color":"gold"}]

Displays a message showing each player's kill score.

/tellraw @a {"text":"Hello World","bold":true,"color":"red"}

Sends "Hello World" in bold red text to all players.

Permission Level & Requirements

/tellraw sits at permission Level 2 - Game Master / Cheats, which means it needs permission level 2, the level cheats grant to single-player worlds and that operators hold by default.

In a single-player world you must have "Allow Cheats" turned on (or open the world to LAN with cheats) before it will run; on a multiplayer server the player needs to be an operator at the matching level.

This reference describes the Java Edition 1.21 form of the command; Bedrock Edition may use slightly different argument formats.

Common Mistakes

Using plain text instead of JSON format, /tellraw requires valid JSON text component syntax.
Forgetting that clickEvent run_command requires the player to have permission to run the command.

Notes

Text components support: text, color, bold, italic, underlined, strikethrough, obfuscated, clickEvent, hoverEvent, insertion, selector, score, nbt, translate, and keybind.

Related Commands

If /tellraw is part of your toolkit, the commands below are the ones you will most often reach for alongside it: /title, /msg, /say, and /trigger. They cover closely related tasks, so the links above jump straight to each one.

Frequently Asked Questions about /tellraw

What does the /tellraw command do in Minecraft?

Sends a JSON-formatted message to players. Supports clickable text, hover events, colors, formatting, and score/selector insertion. It belongs to the display command group and was added in Java Edition 1.7.

What is the correct syntax for /tellraw?

/tellraw . The required arguments are targets and message.

What permission level does /tellraw need?

It requires permission Level 2 - Game Master / Cheats. On a server the player must be an operator at that level, or have cheats enabled in single-player.

What is a common mistake when using /tellraw?

Using plain text instead of JSON format, /tellraw requires valid JSON text component syntax.

Can you give an example of /tellraw in use?

Yes. /tellraw @a [{"text":"Score: ","color":"white"},{"score":{"name":"@s","objective":"kills"},"color":"gold"}] — displays a message showing each player's kill score.

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