Here to Stay

Some little companions are worth keeping close.

Found a creature you want to keep in your cozy home, garden, or aquarium? Here to Stay lets you give supported creatures protection from natural despawning simply by picking them up and placing them back down. No extra items, commands, or name tags required!

Pick Up, Place Down, Stay Awhile

With Carry On, pick up a supported creature and place it down to enable despawn protection. Pick up and place the same creature again to disable protection. Each release switches the setting, so the choice stays yours.

Your protected companions can remain in the world after you travel away or leave and rejoin, without needing a name tag.

Little Wildlife Friends, Too

Have Chirpy's Wildlife installed? Its supported inventory-captured creatures can use the same on/off despawn-protection toggle. The protection state is remembered on the captured item, ready for the next release.

Wildlife inventory-release integration is enabled by default and can be switched off in the configuration.

A Small, Friendly Reminder

A compact action-bar notification lets you know exactly what happened:
Despawn protection enabled!
Despawn protection disabled!

The messages stay short and out of the way, letting you get back to your adventures.

Protection, Not Invincibility

Here to Stay prevents natural despawning for creatures you've chosen to protect. It does not prevent ordinary deaths, change natural creature spawns, or make wild mobs persistent just because they're nearby.

Creatures with their own persistence, such as name-tagged pets, keep that independent protection. The mod uses lightweight pickup-and-release hooks rather than constant mob scanning.

Simple, Optional Settings

To change Wildlife inventory-release protection, open config/heretostay.properties and set enableInventoryReleasePersistence=true or false. Restart Minecraft or the dedicated server for the change to take effect. The Carry On toggle remains available either way.

With optional Mod Menu installed on the client, Here to Stay has its own little green-heart icon and a local settings screen. Dedicated-server settings are managed on the server.

Installation & Compatibility

Minecraft 1.20.1 · Fabric · Java 17

Required: Carry On 2.1.2.7+ and its required dependencies.
Optional: Chirpy's Wildlife 2.2 for supported inventory releases, and Mod Menu for client-side settings.

Place the Here to Stay JAR in your mods folder. The main pickup-and-release features have been tested in singleplayer; dedicated-server testing is still in progress.

Tested Mod Versions

In-game verified on Minecraft 1.20.1 · Fabric · Singleplayer

Carry On 2.1.2.7 — Pickup/release protection toggling verified in-game. Protected creatures were observed remaining after traveling away and leaving/rejoining a singleplayer world.
Chirpy's Wildlife 2.2 — Inventory capture/release protection toggling verified in-game.

Additional mods tested alongside Here to Stay:
Tide 2.1.1 — Fabric 1.20.1
Hybrid Aquatic 1.7.4 — Fabric 1.20.1

These additional creature mods are not required dependencies. Their listed versions were included in the in-game compatibility testing, but individual species and every possible pickup/release combination have not been exhaustively verified.

Not yet separately verified: The optional Mod Menu display/settings integration, dedicated multiplayer servers, and persistence across a full dedicated-server restart. Other versions and unlisted integrations may work, but they have not been specifically verified.

For the critters who deserve a little place to stay. 💚