The best Stardew Valley mods to start with are Lookup Anything, Chests Anywhere and NPC Map Locations for quality of life, Automate and Tractor Mod for the farm, and Stardew Valley Expanded or Ridgeside Village if you want new content. They’re all free, work with 1.6 and need SMAPI. Below you’ll find the 21 mods in our directory grouped by category, with their requirements, three packs for your first save and the combinations that work best.
Before you choose: SMAPI, version 1.6 and dependencies
- SMAPI is required. SMAPI 4.5.2 (as of October 2026) is the mod loader and requires Stardew Valley 1.6.14 or later. If you don’t have it yet, start with how to install Stardew Valley mods.
- Check the game version each mod requires. The latest on PC is 1.6.15 (as of October 2026), and many current mods already require it. The full list is in mods compatible with Stardew Valley 1.6.
- Check the dependencies. Expansions require several frameworks. We list them on each mod page, and the SMAPI console warns you if one is missing.
- Download from the official page. Almost all of them are on Nexus Mods. Many expansion authors forbid reuploading their mods.
Frameworks: the base the others need
They don’t change the game on their own. Install them when a mod asks for them.
- SMAPI (4.5.2): the mod loader. It opens a console showing what has loaded and tells you about updates for your mods.
- Content Patcher (2.9.1): the framework most mods need. It loads content packs, such as portraits, retextures or expansions. It requires 1.6.15 or later.
- Generic Mod Config Menu (1.16.0): an in-game menu for changing other mods’ options without touching files. Many mods recommend it as optional.
- SpaceCore (1.28.4): a library by spacechase0 that, according to its page, more than 780 mods use, including Ridgeside Village, East Scarp and Sword and Sorcery.
- Farm Type Manager (1.26.1): spawns forage, ores and monsters according to each pack’s rules. SVE, Ridgeside Village and East Scarp require it, and it needs Content Patcher.
UI and quality of life
These are the most recommended for a first modded save: they don’t change the game’s content, they just give you information or save you steps.
Information
- Lookup Anything (1.55.0): press F1 over anything to see which gifts a villager likes, when a crop will be ready or why an animal isn’t happy. It requires SMAPI 4.3.1.
- UI Info Suite 2 (2.3.7): daily luck, tomorrow’s weather, sprinkler and bee house range, days left until harvest and much more, each feature toggled separately. Its latest version is from November 2024, for 1.6.14.
- NPC Map Locations (3.5.2): shows on the map where each villager is and whose birthday it is, with an optional minimap. It includes Spanish in the mod itself.
- Data Layers (1.23.0): map overlays with F2 to see sprinkler range, which crops are watered or where a building fits.
- CJB Show Item Sell Price (1.11.0): the sell price of an item and of the whole stack when you hover over it. It’s not a cheat menu: it only shows information.
- Gift Taste Helper Continued x2 (1.2.5): each villager’s favorite gifts on the calendar and the social page, with a progression mode that only shows the ones you’ve already discovered.
- Experience Bars (1.4.6): a bar per skill with the experience you need for the next level.
Inventory, crafting and mines
- Chests Anywhere (1.30.1): open chests, the fridge or the shipping bin from anywhere with B. It has a balanced mode if you want some challenge.
- Better Crafting (2.18.0): a crafting and cooking menu with favorites, search and bulk crafting. It doesn’t work on Android.
- Ladder Locator (1.5.2): marks the rocks hiding the ladder in the mines and in Skull Cavern. Its latest file is from June 2024, for 1.6.8.
If you want more visual aids, also check out Convenient Inventory, Range Highlight, Crop Watering Bubbles Continued, Fishing Info Overlays and Visible Fish.
Gameplay: automating the farm
- Automate (2.6.1): connects your machines to chests so they load and empty themselves. Watch out for the shipping bin: if it’s connected, by default it sells whatever is in the network. It changes your save’s economy quite a bit.
- Tractor Mod (4.24.4): you buy a garage with a tractor from Robin and apply tools, seeds or fertilizer over an area around you. Ideal once your farm grows.
Other gameplay mods that fit well in any save: Better Junimos (Junimos also plant and water), Skull Cavern Elevator, Better Ranching, Better Beehouses, The Love of Cooking and three from StardewHack: Wear More Rings, Bigger Backpack and Yet Another Harvest With Scythe.
Expansions: new content
Stardew Valley Expanded
The most popular expansion, by FlashShifter: 28 new NPCs, 278 events, 58 locations, a redesigned world map, 43 fish and optional farms. Version 1.15.11 requires SMAPI, Content Patcher and Farm Type Manager, and weighs 97.6 MB. The author recommends starting a new save. Spanish is separate, with community translations.
Ridgeside Village
A new town with more than 50 NPCs, marriage candidates, shops, festivals and original music. Version 2.5.17 requires Content Patcher, Custom Companions, Farm Type Manager and SpaceCore. It has a progressive mode for adding it to an existing save, and its authors advise against installing it with mod managers.
East Scarp
Another town with marriageable NPCs, more than 100 events, special orders, animals and crops. Version 3.0.9 (May 2026) is the most recent of the four, but it has seven requirements besides SMAPI: Content Patcher, Farm Type Manager, SpaceCore, MEEP, HxW Tilesheets and the two Lumisteria Tilesheets.
Sword and Sorcery
A fantasy expansion for East Scarp: three romance candidates, five new spellcasting skills and a 30-floor dungeon with a final boss. It needs East Scarp and all its requirements.
Once you’ve tried the big ones, there are more expansions for 1.6: Sunberry Village, Visit Mount Vapius, Stardew Aquarium and Downtown Zuzu, the last one still in beta.
Graphics: changing the look of the valley
Graphics mods don’t touch gameplay, so they’re the easiest to add to an existing save. Almost all of them work with Content Patcher and some with Alternative Textures, which lets you have several textures for the same building or animal and switch them with a paint bucket.
- DaisyNiko’s Earthy Recolour: earthy, less saturated tones for the whole outdoor valley.
- Vibrant Pastoral Redrawn: the alternative in vivid pastel tones, with add-ons for SVE and East Scarp.
- Elle’s Seasonal Buildings and Hudson Valley Buildings: farm buildings with a version for each season.
- Elle’s Cuter Barn Animals, Coop Animals and Cats: hundreds of looks for animals and pets, using the 1.6 system.
- Nyapu’s Portraits: new portraits for villagers, with packs for SVE and Ridgeside Village.
- Vanilla Tweaks – Interface Edition: touched-up icons and menus that keep the original style.
Pick just one map recolor: Earthy and Vibrant Pastoral change the same textures and there’s no point installing both.
Recommended packs for your first modded save
Quality of life pack: the same old game, more comfortable
SMAPI, Generic Mod Config Menu, Lookup Anything, NPC Map Locations, CJB Show Item Sell Price and Chests Anywhere. They don’t add content, so you can put them in your current save. If you don’t want anything spoiled, use Gift Taste Helper Continued x2 in progression mode instead of looking everything up with Lookup Anything.
Big farm pack
Add Automate, Tractor Mod, Data Layers and Better Crafting to the previous one. Automate and Data Layers go well together: with the layers you can see which machines are working.
New content pack
SMAPI, Content Patcher, Farm Type Manager and Stardew Valley Expanded, on a new save. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can add Ridgeside Village (with Custom Companions and SpaceCore) and East Scarp. If you like fantasy, Sword and Sorcery goes on top of East Scarp.
Combinations, conflicts and install order
Install order
- SMAPI, then launch the game to check that it works.
- The frameworks your mods require: Content Patcher, Farm Type Manager, SpaceCore, Generic Mod Config Menu.
- UI and gameplay mods.
- Expansions, one at a time, launching the game between each one to check the console.
Combinations that work
- SVE, Ridgeside Village and East Scarp. East Scarp states it’s compatible with SVE and Ridgeside Village, and Ridgeside’s changelog includes fixes for coexisting with the other two. According to its author, Sword and Sorcery works with SVE and Ridgeside Village.
- CJB Show Item Sell Price and Lookup Anything, if you want even more data on each item.
- UI Info Suite 2 and NPC Map Locations in multiplayer: UI Info Suite 2’s own page recommends NPC Map Locations for seeing villagers on the map.
Known conflicts
- Experience Bars and UI Info Suite 2 show the same experience bar: pick one.
- Tractor Mod and Harvest With Scythe Mod clash when harvesting.
- Better Crafting and Convenient Chests’ crafting from chests: Better Crafting already has its own.
- Chests Anywhere can throw errors with Joys of Efficiency when opening the shipping bin.
- East Scarp is probably not compatible with Seven Deadly Sins or Uncanny Valley, and Sword and Sorcery tends to cause problems with PolyamorySweet.
Stardew Valley 1.6 mods: which game version they require
All 21 mods work with 1.6, but they don’t all require the same version:
- 1.6.15 or later: Content Patcher, SpaceCore, Farm Type Manager, Lookup Anything, Chests Anywhere, Automate, Tractor Mod, CJB Show Item Sell Price, Better Crafting and Data Layers.
- 1.6.14 or later: SMAPI, Generic Mod Config Menu, UI Info Suite 2 and Experience Bars.
- 1.6.9 or later: NPC Map Locations, Ridgeside Village and East Scarp.
- 1.6.x: Stardew Valley Expanded, Sword and Sorcery, Gift Taste Helper Continued x2 and Ladder Locator.
If you play on 1.6.15, the latest on PC, all of them will work for you. Some mods keep old files for 1.5.6 with different requirements: always download the 1.6 one. If you play with friends or on mobile, also check our guides to multiplayer mods and Android mods.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the best Stardew Valley mod?
To start with, Lookup Anything: it doesn’t change the game and gives you data you’d otherwise have to look up on the wiki. If you want new content, Stardew Valley Expanded is the most popular expansion.
Which mods work with Stardew Valley 1.6?
All 21 in this guide. Check which version each one requires: many already need 1.6.15. You’ll find them all in the list of mods for 1.6.
Can I install SVE, Ridgeside Village and East Scarp at the same time?
Yes. East Scarp states it’s compatible with the other two, and Ridgeside Village has fixes for coexisting with them. Install all of each one’s requirements and, ideally, start a new save.
Are Stardew Valley mods free?
All 21 in our directory are free. To download from Nexus Mods you only need a free account.