Waila mod: its history and what to use now

Waila stands for “What Am I Looking At”, and for years it was one of the first mods anyone put in a pack. Point your crosshair at a block and a small tooltip at the top of the screen tells you what it is. In a big modpack full of look-alike machines, that tooltip saved a lot of guessing.

Waila is finished. Its last file, version 1.7.1 for Minecraft 1.11.2, went up on May 9, 2017. If you play anything newer, you want one of its successors. Jade and WTHIT are the two direct descendants, and The One Probe is the long-standing alternative.

This page replaces our old Waila review. Nobody here has played the successors for this refresh; every fact comes from the official project pages, checked on October 16, 2026.

What Waila did

The CurseForge page calls Waila a “UI improvement mod aimed at providing block information directly ingame”. In practice, the name of a block was on screen as soon as you looked at it.

Other mods could also add their own lines to that tooltip. Add-ons such as Waila Harvestability plugged into it to show which tool a block needs.

The history: from Waila to Jade and WTHIT

1. Waila, by ProfMobius. Builds up to Minecraft 1.11.2, the last one in May 2017.
2. Hwyla, “Here’s What You’re Looking At”, by TehNut. A fork of Waila with Forge builds and, later, Fabric builds. Its last files came out in August 2020, for Minecraft 1.16. The author then wrote: “I am no longer interested in modding. This project will no longer be updated.”
3. WTHIT, “What the hell is that?”, by badasintended. A fork of Hwyla, which is itself a fork of Waila. Its CurseForge page lists ProfMobius and TehNut as former authors.
4. Jade, by Snownee. The project calls itself “Hwyla/Waila for modern Minecraft versions” and supports Minecraft 1.16 and newer.

The One Probe, by McJty, sits beside that tree rather than in it. Its Modrinth page describes it as “a WAILA alternative that shows information about what you’re looking at”.

Waila version support

Every Waila build needs Forge. There is no build for Minecraft 1.12 or newer.

What to install instead

Jade

Jade has builds for the newest Minecraft version, 26.3, and more than 277 million downloads on CurseForge. It runs on the client alone, but a copy on the server unlocks extras such as item storage, brewing stand fuel and the bees inside a beehive. The project lists its changes compared with Hwyla as an API redesign, more vanilla add-ons, more configuration and better accessibility. Default keys are on the number pad: Keypad 0 opens the settings, Keypad 1 toggles the overlay, and Keypad 3 and 4 show recipes and uses if you also have JEI. Support for other mods comes from a separate Jade Addons mod.

WTHIT

WTHIT is the direct fork of Hwyla, and its CurseForge page still credits the Waila and Hwyla authors. It shows a tooltip for the block or fluid you look at and has an API for other mods. It needs a small library called bad packets on every loader, plus Fabric API on Fabric. Megane is the add-on for tech mods.

The One Probe

The One Probe shows the block’s name, the mod it comes from and the tool you need to harvest it, plus stored energy, and chest contents while you sneak. By default you only see that information while you hold the probe item. You can configure it to show all the time, like Waila. It must be installed on the server too.

How to install Jade

Our 2014 posts had you copy jars into .minecraft/mods by hand. A launcher does that part now. We use Prism Launcher here because it is free, open source and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

1. Install Prism Launcher and sign in with your Microsoft account.
2. Create an instance for your Minecraft version.
3. Select it, click Edit, open the Version tab and add NeoForge or Fabric. For 1.20.1 and older, Forge also works.
4. Open the Mods tab, click Download Mods and search for “Jade”. On Fabric, add Fabric API as well.
5. Click OK, launch the game and look at a block. Press Keypad 0 to open the settings.
6. To get the server-side extras in multiplayer, put the same Jade file in the server’s mods folder.

WTHIT installs the same way: add WTHIT and bad packets, plus Fabric API on Fabric.

Verdict

1.5 out of 5

Waila earned its reputation in the 1.7.10 era, but as a mod to install today it rates low because it stops at Minecraft 1.11.2. Install Jade, or WTHIT if you want the most direct line from the original.

Facts checked against the official pages on October 16, 2026

Sources

• Waila on CurseForge
• Hwyla on CurseForge
• Jade on CurseForge and on Modrinth
• WTHIT on CurseForge, on Modrinth and on GitHub
• The One Probe on Modrinth
• Prism Launcher wiki: Downloading mods