What is openfriendmod?

OpenFriend is a Fabric mod for Minecraft Java Edition that brings back the friends list feature from a recent development snapshot to much older versions of the game, going all the way back to version 1.16.5. It lets players search for friends by their gamertag, send and accept friend requests, and use an in-game "Open to Friends" option to join a friend's world directly, without needing the vanilla launcher to support any of this. The mod ships 30 separate builds, one for each supported Minecraft version between 1.16.5 and 1.21.11, since each version needs code adjusted for that release's internal changes. Only a handful of these builds have been personally tested end to end by the author, though the rest share code with tested versions and are expected to work. Users are encouraged to file a GitHub issue with their Minecraft version and launcher log if something breaks. Setup involves installing Fabric Loader, downloading the jar file that matches your Minecraft version, and dropping it into the mods folder. On first launch, a device code sign in screen appears where you log in with the Microsoft account tied to your Minecraft account. A bundled background program, called the Core, handles the authentication and networking side and unpacks itself automatically the first time you run the mod. The project is split into several pieces: this mod itself handles the in-game interface, a separate Core program written in Go manages Microsoft and Xbox Live sign in along with the networking bridge, an optional Paper plugin lets a server bypass online mode checks, and a shared UI toolkit called OpenMix was built for this project and later split out on its own. Known limitations on older versions include missing player skin icons and a device code sign in flow instead of automatic sign in. The mod is released under the MIT license and is explicitly not affiliated with Microsoft, Mojang, or Xbox.