On the Library
How the Library of Skins works
In 1941 Jorge Luis Borges described a library of hexagonal rooms that holds every book of 410 pages its alphabet allows. Almost all of the books are nonsense. Somewhere on the shelves is the true catalogue of the Library, next to thousands of false ones. This is that library, for Minecraft skins.
What is on the shelves
A skin file is a 64 × 64 image, or 4,096 pixels, but the player model shows only 3,264 of them. 1,632 are on the base layer, which is the body itself. The other 1,632 are on the overlay layer, a second layer drawn on top for the hat, jacket, sleeves and trousers. A base pixel can be any of 16,777,216 colours. An overlay pixel can be any of those colours, or transparent.
Each way of colouring those pixels is one page, and the Library holds each one exactly once. That makes 3.06 × 1023,581 pages, a number with 23,582 digits. The observable universe has about 1080 atoms.
How the pages are arranged
The Library copies the layout of Borges' library. One page holds one skin. A volume has 410 pages, a shelf holds 32 volumes, a wall has 5 shelves, and a hexagon has 4 walls of shelves. One hexagon therefore holds 262,400 skins. The total does not divide evenly, so the very last volume in the Library has only 16 pages.
A page's address names its hexagon, wall, shelf, volume and page. Hexagons are named in base 36, with the digits 0 to 9 and the letters a to z, and the longest names are 15,149 characters.
Nothing is stored. A keyed, reversible shuffle turns each page number into its skin, and turns each skin back into its page number. Moving to the next page changes nearly every pixel, so neighbouring pages look unrelated. Borges' librarian guessed that his Library was "unlimited and periodic": a traveller who walked long enough would find the same volumes coming round again. This one is periodic. It is finite, and after the last page comes the first.
Why the addresses are so long
There are exactly as many addresses as there are skins, so on average an address has to carry as much information as the skin it points to. That is why a hexagon's name runs to thousands of characters.
Why almost everything is noise
On a random page every pixel is an independent random colour, so the page looks like static. Skins that look drawn are on the shelves too, but the chance of opening any particular skin at random is 1 in a number with 23,582 digits. That is why there is a search desk. You write some of the pixels, the Library fills in the rest, and the fill mode decides which of the matching pages you see.
- Silence makes every unwritten base pixel black and leaves unwritten overlay pixels transparent, so the same drawing always opens the same page.
- Static gives unwritten pixels random colours. Almost every page that contains your drawing looks like this.
- Echoes gives unwritten pixels colours close to the ones you used, scattered at random. These are the rare pages that share your palette, and the Library has all of them.
Static and Echoes leave unwritten overlay pixels transparent unless you turn on "Fill unwritten overlay pixels too".
Wearing what you find
"Download skin" on any page saves an ordinary skin PNG that you can upload to Minecraft. Your current skin is on the shelves as well. Bring it to the desk and the Library opens its page.
Common questions
Is every Minecraft skin really in here?
Yes, every skin the player model can show. That means any colour on each of the 1,632 base pixels, and any colour or transparency on each of the 1,632 overlay pixels. The parts of the 64 × 64 file that the game never draws are left out, so two files that differ only there share a page.
Can I wear these skins?
Yes. "Download skin" on any page saves a normal 64 × 64 PNG. In Java Edition, add it in the Skins tab of the Minecraft Launcher or on your profile at minecraft.net. In Bedrock Edition on Windows, Android or iOS, open the Dressing Room, choose Classic Skins, then Import. Consoles cannot import skin files. You can choose wide or slim arms when you upload it.
How do I find my own skin?
Open the skin editor, press "Bring your own skin" and choose your skin file, then press "Search the Library". Your skin is written on exactly one page, and the search takes you there. Older 64 × 32 skins have no left arm or leg, so the desk copies the right ones. You can also draw only part of it, such as the face, and see pages that share that part.
Why do the pages look like noise?
Nearly all of them are noise. Each pixel on a random page is an independent random colour, and pages that look drawn are too rare to turn up by chance. To see readable pages, write some of the pixels yourself at the desk.
Can I send a page to someone?
Yes. "Copy link" on any page copies a link to it. Anyone who opens that link sees the same skin, because the address in it decides what is written on the page. The link is about 15,000 characters long, too long for a Discord message, so there you can send the downloaded PNG instead: bring it to the desk and it opens the same page.
Is my skin uploaded anywhere when I search?
No. The Library is a calculation that runs in your browser, and there is no database of skins to send yours to. Your drawing is saved in your own browser so it is still there next time. The site does count visits. It records which kind of page was opened, such as a skin page or the editor, but never its address, so it cannot tell which skin you looked at.
Is this affiliated with Mojang?
No. The Library of Skins is an independent fan project. Minecraft is a trademark of Mojang Synergies AB, and this site is not approved by or connected to Mojang or Microsoft.
After Jorge Luis Borges' "La biblioteca de Babel" (1941) and Jonathan Basile's libraryofbabel.info.