Stardew Valley quality of life mods cut out repetitive steps and show information the game hides, without changing what makes it special. The most popular are Lookup Anything (press F1 to see the details of anything), Chests Anywhere (open your chests from anywhere), Automate (machines load themselves) and UI Info Suite 2 (luck, weather and harvest days on screen). They all need SMAPI and work on PC and Steam Deck with version 1.6. Many of Pathoschild’s mods already require 1.6.15 and SMAPI 4.1.10 or later. In this guide we rank them by need and tell you which ones change the game’s balance. You’ll also find the most common conflicts. If you’re after other kinds of mods, check out our guide to the best Stardew Valley mods.
Before you start: three levels of «help»
Not all quality of life mods help in the same way. To choose without ruining the original experience, think in three levels:
- Information only. They show you what already exists, such as prices, ranges or which crops you still need to water. The game works the same.
- Shortcuts. They save steps, like opening a chest remotely or calling your horse, but you still do the work.
- Automation. They do the work for you and change the pace and economy of your save.
Also install Generic Mod Config Menu. Many of these mods can be configured with it in-game, without editing config.json.
Inventory, chests and crafting
- Chests Anywhere: open chests, the fridge and the shipping bin with the B key. Its balanced mode limits access to the chests in the area you’re in and disables it in the mines.
- Convenient Inventory: stashes items into nearby chests that already contain them, all at once. It also lets you mark favorite items so you don’t sell or trash them (left Alt and click).
- Better Crafting: replaces the crafting and cooking menu with one that has categories, favorites, search and bulk crafting. It doesn’t work on Android.
- Convenient Chests: lets you craft and cook with what’s in nearby chests. If you combine it with Better Crafting, turn off the feature they both have.
- Remote Fridge Storage: marks chests as pantry storage so you can cook with their ingredients. It’s compatible with The Love of Cooking.
- Better Shipping Bin: turns the shipping bin into a chest-style menu, so you can rescue anything you dropped in by mistake before it’s sold.
- Item Bags: bags for gems, seeds or fish that take up a single slot. It needs SpaceCore and, according to its author, it can desync in multiplayer.
- Bigger Backpack and Wear More Rings: a 48-slot backpack for 50,000 g and up to 20 equipped rings. Both need StardewHack and don’t work on Android.
On-screen information
World data
- Lookup Anything: press F1 over a villager, crop or animal to see favorite gifts, days until harvest or the animal’s status. Shift + F1 opens the search. It also works with a controller.
- UI Info Suite 2: daily luck, tomorrow’s weather, harvest days, sprinkler range and an experience bar. Each feature can be toggled separately. Its latest version is from November 2024.
- Data Layers: map overlays with F2: sprinkler and scarecrow range, unwatered crops and buildable tiles.
- NPC Map Locations: shows villagers on the map in real time, with an optional minimap. It has immersion options so you don’t lose the challenge of finding them.
Farm, fishing and mines
- CJB Show Item Sell Price: the sell price of every item, per unit and per stack. It’s not a cheat mod.
- Crop Watering Bubbles Continued: a droplet over unwatered crops. Only the player who installs it sees it.
- Range Highlight: highlights the range of sprinklers, scarecrows, bee houses and Junimo huts.
- Fishing Info Overlays and Visible Fish: which fish are in the water and at what odds, or the fish visibly swimming around. Neither changes the fishing minigame.
- Ladder Locator: marks the rocks in the mines that hide ladders.
- Experience Bars and Mini Bars – Healthbars Mod: experience bars for each skill and health bars over monsters.
Villagers and the Community Center
- Gift Taste Helper Continued x2: favorite gifts on the calendar and the social page. Its progression mode only shows the ones you’ve already discovered.
- Better Friendship: bubbles over villagers with the gift in your inventory they like best.
- Community Center Helper: hints on where to get each bundle item. It doesn’t spoil anything by default (ShowSpoilers is off) and includes Spanish.
- Stardew Notifications: alerts for birthdays, festivals, the Traveling Cart and farm production.
Menus and shortcuts
- Billboard Anywhere: opens the calendar and quest boards from anywhere.
- To-Dew: an in-game to-do list, with recurring tasks and season filters. Open it with L.
- Social Page Order Redux: sorts the Social tab by hearts or name and adds a search box.
- Better Game Menu: a faster pause menu that only loads each tab when you open it. It’s PC only.
- Horse Flute Anywhere: call your horse from anywhere, even the bottom of the mines, with the H key.
- Skip Intro, Running Late and Infinite Zoom: skip the startup logos, show the clock minute by minute or in 24-hour format, and extend the zoom limits.
- Mobile Phone: a phone to call villagers and open apps from other mods.
Automation and repetitive chores
- Automate: put a chest next to your machines and they’ll load and empty themselves. Heads up: if you connect the shipping bin, by default it sells whatever is in the network.
- Tractor Mod: Robin sells you a garage with a tractor to till, water, plant and harvest over an area.
- Better Junimos: Junimos plant, fertilize and water. Keeping its default progression enabled is the fairest option.
- AutoAnimalDoors and Automatic Gates: barn, coop and fence gates open and close on their own.
- Activate Sprinklers, Auto-Grab Truffles and No Fence Decay Redux: water instantly with a click, collect truffles with the Auto-Grabber and stop fences from decaying.
- Smart Building: a build mode for placing fences and flooring by drawing them on the ground. It needs Generic Mod Config Menu.
- Passable Crops: lets you walk through crops instead of going around them.
- TimeSpeed: speeds up, slows down or freezes time. But if you freeze the clock, machines stop too.
Default keys for the most popular mods
| Mod | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Lookup Anything | F1 / Shift + F1 | Look up what’s under the cursor / search |
| Chests Anywhere | B | Open chests remotely |
| Data Layers | F2 | Show layers; Ctrl switches layers |
| Experience Bars | X / Shift + X | Show or hide the bars / move them |
| To-Dew | L | Open the to-do list |
| Tractor Mod | Backspace | Summon the tractor |
| Horse Flute Anywhere | H | Call your horse |
| TimeSpeed | N | Freeze time |
| Range Highlight | Left Shift | Show all ranges |
All keys can be rebound. Watch out for Billboard Anywhere: by default it uses B (calendar), H (quests), N (Special Orders) and J (Qi’s challenges). The first three clash with Chests Anywhere, Horse Flute Anywhere and TimeSpeed, so if you combine them, change the keys in their config.json.
Which ones don’t break the vanilla experience
If you want the game to keep feeling like the original, start with mods that only show information or save clicks:
- They don’t change anything in the game: CJB Show Item Sell Price, Crop Watering Bubbles Continued, Range Highlight, Social Page Order Redux, Skip Intro, Running Late, Better Shipping Bin and Better Game Menu.
- They take away some discovery, but can be tuned: Lookup Anything (if you look everything up, you skip discovering things by playing), NPC Map Locations, Gift Taste Helper Continued (with progression mode) and Community Center Helper (no spoilers by default).
- They change the balance: Automate, Chests Anywhere without balanced mode, Tractor Mod, TimeSpeed if you make days longer, Bigger Backpack, and Ladder Locator if you force shafts in Skull Cavern. They aren’t bad mods, but they’re best installed once you already know the game.
Duplicate features and conflicts
- UI Info Suite 2 already includes an experience bar and sprinkler range. If you install Experience Bars or Range Highlight, turn that feature off in one of the two.
- Better Crafting clashes with Convenient Chests’ crafting from chests.
- Yet Another Harvest With Scythe is incompatible with Tractor Mod, and its author says it can’t be fixed.
- Chests Anywhere can throw errors with Joys of Efficiency in the shipping bin.
- TimeSpeed isn’t compatible with other mods that change time.
Multiplayer: who needs to install them
Almost all of them are local mods: only the player who installs them sees them, and you can play with friends who don’t have them. There are exceptions:
- Automate and To-Dew have to be installed by the host. TimeSpeed too, because time mods only work in the host’s game.
- NPC Map Locations is needed by the host and by each farmhand who wants to see villagers on their map.
- With Lookup Anything, farmhands can’t see NPC schedules. With Chests Anywhere, they only see chests in synced areas.
We explain this in detail in our guide to Stardew Valley multiplayer mods.
Compatibility with 1.6, Android and consoles
Every mod in this guide is marked as compatible with 1.6. Some require a specific version, such as Lookup Anything, Chests Anywhere, Automate, Data Layers, TimeSpeed or CJB Show Item Sell Price, which need 1.6.15. If your game won’t update, check the list of mods compatible with 1.6.
There are no mods on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox or iOS. On Android there’s SMAPI for Android, an unofficial, experimental port:
- Marked as Android-compatible on their page: Lookup Anything, UI Info Suite 2, Experience Bars, Gift Taste Helper Continued, Ladder Locator, Convenient Inventory, Better Junimos, Auto Animal Doors, Automatic Gates and TimeSpeed.
- With an older version for mobile: Tractor Mod (4.24.3) and Generic Mod Config Menu (1.2.0).
- Don’t work on Android: Better Crafting, Better Game Menu, Bigger Backpack, Wear More Rings and Remote Fridge Storage.
Before installing anything on your phone, read our guide to Stardew Valley mods on Android and consoles. You’ll find more options in the UI mods and gameplay mods sections.
Pair this guide with our pick of Stardew Valley expansion mods.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the most useful quality of life mod to start with?
Lookup Anything. It doesn’t change the game, it works with a single key (F1) and it answers almost everything: what each villager likes, how long a crop has left or how an animal is doing. Pair it with Chests Anywhere in balanced mode.
Do quality of life mods disable achievements?
No. SMAPI is compatible with Steam and GOG achievements, according to its official page.
Can I remove a UI mod without breaking my save?
Generally yes, because UI mods don’t store anything in your save. There are exceptions: with Bigger Backpack, empty the fourth row and shrink the backpack to 36 slots (with player_setbackpacksize 36) before uninstalling it.
UI Info Suite 2 or Lookup Anything?
They complement each other. UI Info Suite 2 shows fixed icons on screen, like luck or weather, and Lookup Anything gives detailed information when you ask for it. If you use both, turn off whatever you don’t need in UI Info Suite 2.
Do these mods work on Switch or Xbox?
No. Stardew Valley doesn’t support mods on consoles. On Xbox you can only use them with the PC version from the Xbox app or PC Game Pass.