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Highlights

  • Stardew Valley cheats and exploits exist to help players shortcut the time-consuming tasks of farming and progress faster in the game.
  • Cheats like early access to the Secret Woods, item duplication, and speedy building time can give players an advantage and make their farm more successful.
  • Some cheats, like the ability to get gold quality spring onions or the early acquisition of the Galaxy Sword, may no longer work in the latest game updates, but can still be used in older versions.

The farm life is a fruitful life, but one that takes a lot of time. Many days are spent toiling away under the sun, tilling the soil, and tending to crops to eventually reap the rewards. Well, it’s a good thing Stardew Valley is a video game, because with video games come cheats, and with cheats the farm life is easier than ever.

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There are several cheats and exploits in the game to help you out; some may not work on every console or past particular updates, but they exist nonetheless to shortcut some of the grinding, and help your small-time farm reach the big leagues.

Updated October 17th, 2023 by Rosa Baumgartl: With the 1.3.27 update, which brought multiplayer, the world of cheats opened up thanks to server lag and NPC confusion. Since then, 1.5 gave us outdoor furniture, and the ability to bypass barriers by simply jumping off a chair. Thanks to these additions, we've included a few more ways to take advantage of the system, without ever breaking the game.

11 Early Access To The Secret Woods

Stardew Valley Player Holding A Morel Next To A Bench At The Entrance To The Secret Woods

Typically, the only way to gain access to the Secret Wood, and ultimately rare foragables and a hidden Stardrop, is by upgrading your Axe to at least Iron. This costs a few thousand coins, which is big money early in the game. This cheat means you can skip Clint's lengthy forging process, and gain access on day one.

How To Do It

An Iron Axe or better is needed to chop up Hardwood logs, however, by picking up a chair from your house you can glitch over the log. Bring any chair to the fallen log in the north-west of the Cindersap Forest, and place it on the far side of the log. From a couple of paces away you can still jump onto a chair or bench. Then dismount normally, and you're in the Woods. Put the chair on the opposite side of the log and sit on it to leave again.

10 Item Duplication

Stardew Valley Two Players Facing A Table Indoors Holding A Prismatic Shard

A fairly common cheat involves duplicating items, especially valuable ones, whether for monetary gain, mass crafting, or progressing the game more quickly. Thanks to the lag that occurs between the host of a game's server and the other people playing, it's possible to get endless numbers of an item very easily in multiplayer mode.

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How To Do It

All you'll need is at least two players, though this works faster the more people you have, and a table. Place the item you wish to duplicate onto the table, and every player must pick it up at the same time. The game makes a copy for each person picking it up, so you can continue placing one onto a table and all picking it up for quick dupes.

9 Speedy Building Time

Stardew Valley Farm Construction - Robin working on a building on the player's farm, the player reading the sign that says Under Construction

Usually, upon hiring Robin to build something for you, it will take her a few days of slowly hammering away at the same nail, and only one structure can be made at a time. However, in multiplayer mode, it's possible to convince Robin to get a move on without hurting your friendship!

How To Do It

This glitch involves overwhelming the game by having every player on the server opening dialogue with Robin at once. The more people invovled, the more buildings you can get on your farm at once. You'll still need to have all of the materials and funds necessary though. You can each choose a space for what you want on your farm, and then hit the green tick simultaneously. She won't be able to turn down anyone, and so will finish all the buildings at once.

8 Gold Quality Spring Onions

player standing near wild spring onion patch

Note: This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

Foraging for spring onions is a great way to earn money, especially once you’ve got Spring Onion Mastery. As we know, gold star quality items fetch more money than silver or normal items. Well, with this trick you can get gold spring onions all the time!

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How To Do It

Simply fill your inventory, so there are no spaces left, and make sure that you have a gold star Spring Onion in there already. When you go to pick one, the game actually randomizes the quality each time you do. So if your inventory’s full and the one you pick isn't gold, it won’t be picked up, allowing you to try again until you get the gold.

7 Early Galaxy Sword

player in desert area with the galaxy sword unlocked

Note: This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

For those who don’t know, the Galaxy Sword is an awesome weapon with +4 speed and 60 to 80 damage. It takes a while to get hold of it, though: you need to travel to the Calico Desert, and hold a Prismatic Shard between the three pillars to get it. Prismatic Shards are one of the rarest items in the game, and it can take a long time to get one.

How To Do It

Luckily, you can speed things up, buy the Catalog from Pierre and get the green (75th) wallpaper. I know what you’re thinking: how on earth will green wallpaper help? Well, if you take it to the desert and hold it between the pillars, the game counts it as a Prismatic Shard and you’ll get the Galaxy Sword!

6 Multiple Diamonds

Stardew Valley Crafting Menu User Interface For Crystalarium

Note: This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

This cheat works best when you use multiple Crystalariums. You’ll need a quartz per machine, but they’re pretty common and easy to find, so it shouldn’t be long before you have one.

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How To Do It

Put a quartz into each Crystalarium and wait until it’s finished. Each machine should have duplicated another quartz. Go up to them while holding a diamond, and when you grab the new quartz it will enter your inventory as a diamond instead. Do this with multiple Crystalariums and you’ll have tons of diamonds, making cash in no time.

5 Out of Bounds

Stardew Valley Player Fishing Out Of Bounds In The River During Fall

This was last confirmed to be working in version 1.4.5

Some of the best cheats let you completely break the boundaries of games, and there’s one in Stardew Valley just for that. This is a handy trick for fishing in early game, as you can actually walk out to the deeper parts of the sea or the lakes when your fishing level is too low to reach them.

How To Do It

If you stand at the edge of an area – at the top of the beach, for example – and swing a weapon rapidly, you’ll gradually start shifting forward. Keep going far enough and you’ll actually bust out of the boundaries of the area, allowing you to move around in spaces you can’t usually access.

4 Infinite Energy

Stardew Valley Player Fishing At Night  In The Mountain Lake

This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

This cheat lets you have infinite energy, so you can get a ton done without having to worry about exhaustion. It takes advantage of the Spa's restorative properties.

How To Do It

Using the same trick above, exit the game’s boundaries in the Spa. Now go to the pool and put a post in the water. Any post will do – the cheapest way would be to make a wooden one. Then touch the post and leave the water, and the game will think you’re still swimming, even when you leave.

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You can ‘swim’ all the way back to your farm, and go about your day. It looks pretty funny, but it means you have unlimited energy; you’ll never get tired from chopping down trees or watering crops. Imagine all the things you can get done!

3 Endless Fishing

Stardew Valley Official fishing in pond

This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

Fishing’s a pretty time-consuming activity, and it’s a long slog to level ten. It doesn’t help that you’ve got to allow plenty of time, taking into account the travel there and back. But what if you could stop the clock?

How To Do It

As long as you have an active quest in your journal, this trick can net you more time on the clock. Cast your fishing rod and open the journal. This stops the in-game clock from moving forward. When a fish bites, you can reel it in as usual, then rinse and repeat. This cheat saves a load of time, boosting you to level ten way faster than you thought was possible.

2 Never Sleep

Stardew Valley Player In Their Bed With A Dog Asking Go To Sleep
via Zima Blue/Steam

This seems to have been patched out. It may still work on an older version of the game.

When the clock hits 2 a.m., your character will pass out wherever they are. They might have things stolen from their inventory, charged money, or just wake up groggy with little energy left. If you’re really into your farm, chances are you’re sorting out crops far into the wee hours of the morning at times. This cheat will put off sleep to help you work longer.

How To Do It

Simply open the journal when your little farmer yawns, about to pass out. This alters the clock, and you can continue farming. The game will trigger the passing out several times, so you have to keep opening the journal, but it’s worth it to finish planting those parsnips.

1 Free Items

player inside saloon, full of NPCs

This no longer works on console versions of the game as of the 1.3 update. It still works on PC. ConcernedApe previously said in interviews that it wouldn't get patched out for PC but he had to do so on the console versions due to stability reasons.

This is arguably the very best cheat of all. Each item in the game has a code assigned to it. Knowing the code for an item allows you to get as many copies of it as you want.

How To Do It

Name your character with one to three of those codes in brackets, and every time your name is said in the game, one or more of those items will be spawned.

  • Example: Naming yourself "[163][166][434]" will cause a Legend fish, Treasure Chest, and Stardrop to spawn in your inventory any time your name is spoken.

The best way to milk this is to talk to Gus in the Saloon. He says a generic welcome the first time you interact with him, but after that, he says your full name. Talk to him over and over to spam free items for yourself. Go wild – assign your name to make expensive stuff like diamonds, or useful items like ore. You can also use this exploit by naming an animal with one of the codes when you buy them, but it only works once.

In the expandable table below, you can find every code you can use.

Next: Stardew Valley: Complete Guide