How to Install and Use LiteLoader Mods

Last modified on Apr 13, 2022 in General

By Noah

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Overview

Minecraft mods offer a fantastic way to spice up and add new features to your Minecraft game. Using mods, your Minecraft game can be turned into anything you can imagine. They add new blocks, new items, enemies and dimensions, and even change the gameplay completely!

Minecraft mods come in many shapes and forms, too. Throughout the years, the face of Minecraft modding has changed, as different mod loaders came and were replaced. Nowadays, the dominant Mod Loader is Forge, and it’s what the vast majority of mods are built upon.

However, Forge isn’t the be-all end-all of modding. Take, for instance, LiteLoader. It’s a mod loader built to be as lightweight and compatible as possible, and like Forge, it had lots of mods developed for it. But unlike the other mod loaders that Forge overtook, LiteLoader remained popular, and that’s for two important reasons:

The first reason is that LiteLoader is compatible with Forge and all of Forge mods, and can be used alongside it. The second, and far more enticing reason is the fact that LiteLoader mods are client-side. Unlike with Forge, players can join servers without having to make sure their mod lists match, something that can get quite annoying otherwise.
 

Why LiteLoader?

As mentioned in the overview, LiteLoader mods are client-side. They’re lightweight, easy to use and install, and add features that don’t interfere with the work of a server, so you can join any server — be it Forge, Vanilla, or anything else — without having to make sure that the LiteLoader mod lists match.

LiteLoader, in essence, is a mod loader designed to load mods which don’t need to modify game mechanics. For example: mini-map mods, mods that add additional UI elements, or mods that automate certain in-game actions. By design, LiteLoader is designed to run alongside Minecraft Forge Mod Loader (FML), and LiteLoader mods will virtually never conflict with Forge mods.

Of course, a mod loader would be nothing without a selection of mods. You can find a list of LiteLoader’s mods, alongside their compatible Minecraft versions, right here.

If you’re convinced and would like to give LiteLoader a shot, you can follow the steps outlined below to do so. It isn’t as hard as it might seem!
 

How to install LiteLoader

Installing LiteLoader varies, depending on whether or not you want to add it to an already-existing modpack, or start with LiteLoader from scratch. Either way, it’s quite straightforward.
 

How to install LiteLoader from scratch

1. Head over to LiteLoader’s download page and choose the version you want. Always go with the leftmost download — they’re the most recent.
2. Once you’ve selected a version, download the latest [JAR] snapshot.
3. Open the file you’ve downloaded. This will bring up the LiteLoader installation wizard.
4. Under the Extend from: dropdown list, select the Minecraft profile you’d like to add LiteLoader to.
   
5. If you want to use Forge with LiteLoader, you’ll first need to install it! Once that’s done, a Forge profile should appear in the dropdown list.
6. For New Profile:, set the name of the LiteLoader profile’s name. Make it something you can remember, since you’ll be choosing this as the profile for Minecraft to launch.
7. Press OK to proceed with the installation.

 
And that’s it! Once the installation is complete, LiteLoader will be installed and you’ll be able to select it as the profile you want Minecraft to launch with. The list of profiles is on the left side of the Play button in the Minecraft launcher; simply select the LiteLoader profile that you previously named and press Play.
 

How to add LiteLoader to a modpack

1. Head over to LiteLoader’s download page and choose the version you want. Always go with the leftmost download — they’re the most recent.
2. Once you’ve selected a version, download the latest [JAR] snapshot.
3. Open the file you’ve downloaded. This will bring up the LiteLoader installation wizard.
4. On the installation screen, press the checkmark next to Extract LiteLoader.jar.
   
5. Press […] to the right side of the installation path. Set this as somewhere accessible — a new folder on your desktop, for example.
6. Press OK to proceed with the extraction.
7. Locate the liteloader-VERSION-SNAPSHOT-release.jar file that was just extracted.

 
The next steps depend on how you installed your modpack. Different launchers have different ways of accessing the modpack files, and you’ll want to add the LiteLoader .jar file into the mods folder of the modpack.
 

CurseForge

1. Open the Twitch App and locate your modpack, then right click on its thumbnail.
2. Click Open Folder.
3. In the folder that opens, head into the mods subfolder.
   
4. Drag-and-drop LiteLoader’s .jar file into the mods subfolder.

 
And you’re done! Once you’ve got LiteLoader’s .jar file in the correct spot, it will launch alongside your regular modpack.
 

How to add LiteLoader mods

Now that you’ve got LireLoader set up and installed, it’s time for the fun part — choosing and adding mods. As mentioned previously in the guide, you can find a list of LiteLoader mods here.

Once you’ve found a mod — or a number of mods — you’d like to add, the first step is to download them.

1. To the right side of the mod entry in the list, click on the download location. This is usually Minecraft Forum or CurseForge.
2. Once on the download location, proceed to download it. You’ll notice that LiteLoader mods come in the form of .litemod files.
   
3. Next up, you’ll want to open your Minecraft mods folder. If you’ve added LiteLoader to an already-existing modpack, you can follow the steps above — it’s the same mods folder you put the LiteLoader file in. However, if you’re installing LiteLoader from scratch, the process is a bit different.
4. If you’re on Windows, press the Windows Logo Key + R, then type in %APPDATA%\.minecraft and click OK.
5. For those on Mac, press Command + Space, type in ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft and press Enter.
6. Navigate to the mods folder if you’re not already in it.
7. Drag-and-drop the .litemod files you’ve just downloaded into the folder.

 
And we’re done. The next time you start up Minecraft with LiteLoader, it will load the LiteLoader mods in for you!

If you’d like to double-check that the mods are loaded in or not, you can press the grey tab on the top right of Minecraft’s main menu to bring up LiteLoader’s settings panel. If the mods were loaded successfully, they’ll appear in the list there, and you’ll be able to configure them as you please.
 

Suggested LiteLoader mods

If you’re unsure which LiteLoader mods you might want to get, here’s some tested suggestions of our own:

Armors Hud Revived — Adds a configurable UI that shows the armour you’ve currently got equipped. Super handy for just about every occasion.

Autofish — Automatically reels in and recasts your fishing rob upon catching a fish. No more pesky waiting and staring for the fish to bite.

Chat Bubbles — Adds chat bubbles, reminiscent of MMOs such as World of Warcraft, to Minecraft. Heavily customizable and a must-have for any roleplayers out there, though it’s useful for just about everyone.

Macro / Keybind Mod — Allows you to configure keybinds and extensive macros for in-game automation.

VoxelMap — A conversion of the Forge mod, VoxelMap adds a minimap to the corner of your screen.
 

Conclusion

Forge is undoubtedly amazing — its robust API and Multiplayer compatibility have ushered in a whole new era of Minecraft modding, but there’s a wide world of mods outside of its scope, too. LiteLoader proves that mods can be pragmatically useful beyond just adding new gameplay features, while remaining client-side to boot.

As a player of Minecraft, it’s important to know all of your options, and not just the most popular ones. Ease of use, accessibility and lightweightedness are also important factors to consider, and LiteLoader — it even has “light” in its name! — is a benchmark of each of them.