OSRS 1–99 Mining Guide

Every game tick (0.6 seconds) that you spend mining a rock, the game rolls a hidden chance to produce an ore. That success chance is set by two things only: your Mining level and the rock you are hitting — a harder rock like runite rolls far lower than copper. Crucially, your pickaxe does not change the success chance at all. A bronze pickaxe is exactly as likely to produce an ore as a dragon pickaxe; the only difference is how often the game rolls. A bronze pickaxe rolls once every 8 ticks, a rune pickaxe every 3, and a dragon pickaxe every ~2.83. So a better pickaxe means more rolls per minute, which means more ore — always use the best one your level allows.

You earn experience only when an ore is actually produced; the swing animation by itself gives nothing. This is the entire basis of tick manipulation: by interrupting your character's animation with a second action (using a knife on a log, or making tar) at the right moment, you force the game to roll for ore on a faster cycle than the pickaxe normally allows. Done correctly on granite it roughly halves the time between rolls, and that is why the fastest Mining methods all involve a constant, rhythmic click pattern rather than just tapping a rock.

Most rocks deplete after you mine them and need a few seconds to respawn, so much of low-level Mining is about finding a cluster of rocks — ideally three or four close together — and rotating between them so you are never standing idle. A classic example is a triangle of three iron rocks you can reach without taking a step: you mine all three, drop the ore, and the first has respawned by the time you come back round. Some locations halve that respawn time — most notably the Mining Guild — which is why higher-XP training tends to funnel players to a handful of specific spots rather than any old rock.

To train for pure XP you should drop the ore as you go ("power-mining"), using shift-click drop or the mobile tap-to-drop option, rather than running to a bank. Every trip to a bank is mining time you are not spending, so the rule of thumb is simple: bank only when the ore is worth real money (gems, runite, amethyst) and drop everything otherwise. There is one subtle bonus worth knowing — on tick-manipulation methods, moving to the next rock grants a second roll if the first one failed, so the rhythmic move-and-drop pattern is not just about speed, it actually raises your ore-per-action slightly when timed right.

Because the pickaxe controls how often you roll for ore, upgrading your pickaxe is the single biggest speed boost in the skill. The Mining level required to use each: bronze and iron at 1, steel at 6, mithril at 21, adamant at 31, rune at 41, dragon at 61, and crystal at 71 (after Song of the Elves). Each tier also has an Attack-level requirement to wield it, but you can mine with any pickaxe held in your inventory regardless of Attack, so do not let that block you. The gilded and 3rd age pickaxes are cosmetic and mine at rune speed.

The dragon pickaxe rolls every 2.83 ticks on average (a 1/6 chance each roll to be a fast 2-tick instead of 3) and has a special attack that gives a temporary +3 Mining boost — worth popping before a long session. The crystal pickaxe is marginally faster again at ~2.75 ticks, but it costs crystal shards to keep charged and, importantly, gives no benefit when tick-manipulating (tick manipulation already bypasses the pickaxe's roll timer), so for 3-tick granite the cheaper dragon pickaxe is fine.

The standout for serious training is the infernal pickaxe (level 61, plus 85 Smithing to use). It mines at dragon speed but burns roughly 1 in 3 of the ore you mine on the spot, which means far less ore to drop and a stream of passive Smithing XP — about 9,700 Smithing XP/hr alongside granite at 99. One charge lasts around 960,000 Mining XP. It is charged with smouldering stones or dragon pickaxes, so it is an investment, but it is the meta tool for the fastest route. See where it sits among other tools in our skilling gear guide.

The Prospector kit is Mining's XP-boost outfit, the equivalent of the Lumberjack set for Woodcutting. Wearing all four pieces gives +2.5% Mining experience (the four pieces total +2.0% and a full-set bonus adds the last +0.5%). It is a permanent, free-forever boost once earned, and it pays for itself many times over on a long grind to 99.

You buy the pieces from Prospector Percy at the Motherlode Mine using golden nuggets, which drop while cleaning pay-dirt. The full set costs 180 nuggets — roughly 10 hours of Motherlode mining on average — or you can buy the same pieces with points from the Volcanic Mine reward shop instead. There is no Mining requirement to wear it.

One honest caveat: if you are rushing to 99 purely with the fastest tick-manipulation methods, the ~10 hours spent farming nuggets can actually be slower than just mining granite, because the 2.5% boost does not always outweigh the time cost. Most players grab it anyway, partly because the Prospector helmet is required for a hard Falador Diary task and the full kit is needed for a master clue scroll step. If you AFK the Motherlode Mine on the way up — which many players do — you collect the nuggets passively and the question of time cost never really comes up.

A neat upgrade later on: Varrock armour 4 doubles as the Prospector jacket for the set bonus, freeing your body slot for the armour's own double-ore effect — so at the top end you effectively wear both the jacket bonus and Varrock armour in one item. The outfit sits alongside every other XP set in our skilling outfits guide, which is worth a read if you are chasing multiple 99s, since most gathering skills have a similar boost set worth earning early.

Beyond the pickaxe and the Prospector kit, a handful of items push your rates higher. The Varrock armour from the Varrock Diary gives a 10% chance to mine two ores at once on certain rocks — Varrock armour 1 works on iron, Varrock armour 2 on granite, and Varrock armour 4 on amethyst. That double-ore roll is a flat XP increase wherever it applies, and it does not work at the Motherlode Mine, Blast Mine, Volcanic Mine or on gem rocks.

The celestial ring, obtained uncharged from the Shooting Stars activity, gives a hidden +4 boost to your Mining level, which nudges your success chance up. It is cheap and worth getting for any serious grind; its upgraded form, the celestial signet, carries the same effect. At 99 the Mining cape itself adds a small invisible boost, which is why the very top granite rates assume you are wearing it.

Two pairs of gloves matter for the AFK crowd. The Mining gloves (and the superior and expert versions) are bought from the Mining Guild with unidentified minerals; they stop ordinary rocks from depleting for a number of mines, which lengthens your AFK time. The expert mining gloves in particular are the key to AFK amethyst, where they let you go much longer between clicks. For gem rocks, a charged amulet of glory raises your odds of mining the higher-value gems.

The early grind is short. From level 1 to 15, mine copper and tin ore, which can be found together at almost any starter mine. The Lumbridge Swamp mining site is a popular choice because it is quiet and has a tidy cluster of both rocks; drop the ore as you go, since copper and tin are worthless. At our SSOT rate this stretch runs around 15k XP/hr, so it passes in well under an hour.

At level 15 you switch to iron ore, which roughly triples your rate to about 50k XP/hr and stays your home until you decide your endgame route. Iron is the backbone of low-to-mid Mining: stand at a spot with three iron rocks in a triangle so you can mine all three without moving, and power-drop the ore while they respawn.

There is also a faster start that skips the early grind entirely: questing. Completing Doric's Quest, The Dig Site, Plague City, The Giant Dwarf, The Lost Tribe and Another Slice of H.A.M. hands you a combined 27,525 Mining XP, enough to jump straight from level 1 to 37. All have low requirements, and doing them first means you can wield an adamant pickaxe and start iron immediately. If you intend to tick-manipulate, you can stop iron at 45 and move straight to granite; if you would rather avoid tick manipulation, iron carries comfortably onward.

From level 45, tick-manipulated granite — known as "3t4g", short for 3-tick, 4-granite — is the fastest experience in the skill all the way to 99. You set up a 3-tick rhythm by using swamp tar on a clean herb such as a guam leaf (making tar) between mines, then rotate between four granite rocks so you always have one ready. Done cleanly this skips the delay of walking to each rock and rolls for granite every three ticks instead of the pickaxe's normal rate.

The rates climb steadily with level. Our table shows roughly 87k XP/hr at level 45, ~103k at 65, ~114k at 85, and up to 126k XP/hr at 99 with the full setup — Varrock armour 2 or 4, the Prospector kit, an uncharged celestial ring and the Mining cape at 99. Without tick manipulation, granite is only worth about 63k XP/hr, so this method lives and dies on the click pattern. Pair it with an infernal pickaxe and you also bank ~9,700 Smithing XP/hr for free.

The two main spots are the Bandit Camp Quarry in the desert and the Cape Conch mine. The Bandit Camp has four granite rocks in a tight cluster but sits in the desert, so you need desert-heat protection — a Desert amulet 4, or a Hitpoints cape with a regen bracelet to out-heal the damage, or simply waterskins. The Cape Conch mine has no heat to manage at all, which is why many players prefer it once they can reach it. Either way the rhythm is the same: start the tar-and-herb action, click the next granite rock, drop a piece, and click again, all on a tight three-tick beat.

Setup matters more here than almost anywhere else in the game. Bring around 1,000 swamp tar and a stock of clean guam (or use bird snares, which stack cheaply and forgive mistakes better than logs), a pestle and mortar, and a herb sack. To keep the pattern smooth, drop only one or two pieces of granite at a time rather than waiting for a full inventory, shrink the client and zoom in so the rocks sit close to your inventory, and turn off data orbs to avoid misclicks. Expect it to take real practice before it feels natural — the first few hours will be messy. Realistically most players settle around 120,000–125,000 XP/hr once mistakes are counted, against a theoretical ceiling of about 126k in our table. A full 1–99 run on this route is commonly cited at around 130 hours. Map your remaining hours with the Mining calculator.

If constant clicking is not for you, iron ore is the backbone alternative — a relaxed, semi-AFK method that carries you the whole way. From 15 onwards, the rate sits around 50k XP/hr; once you can use the pay-to-play side of the Mining Guild at level 60, it jumps to roughly 75k XP/hr. The Guild is special because its rocks respawn in half the usual time, so with three rocks and good timing you can mine almost continuously without ever waiting.

Wear Varrock armour 1 or higher for the 10% double-iron roll, and use the best pickaxe you can — here, unlike at granite, a faster pickaxe genuinely helps because you are not tick-manipulating. A skills necklace teleports you right to the Guild. Drop the iron as you go for pure XP; iron ore is cheap, so banking it only makes sense for an ironman who needs the ore for Smithing.

There are sixteen good triangle-iron sites scattered around the map — the Al Kharid mine, Legends' Guild, Piscatoris, Mount Karuulm and the Wilderness Resource Area among them — so you can almost always find a quiet one. Before level 60 and the Mining Guild, the Monastery mine south-east of Ardougne is a handy banking spot for ironmen, paired with an Ardougne cloak teleport to get back quickly.

The standard advice for anyone avoiding tick manipulation is blunt: mine iron all the way to level 70, then switch to a low-effort minigame like the Volcanic Mine for the final stretch. Iron is the honest middle path — not the absolute fastest, but far less demanding than 3t4g and still respectable, and the Mining Guild makes the back half genuinely comfortable. For an experienced tick-manipulator, the four-iron spots at the Legends' Guild or Isle of Souls mines let you practise the exact 3-tick cycle you'll use on granite, making iron a useful training ground before you commit to the meta. Either way, iron is the method you fall back on whenever you want progress without total focus.

When you would rather train in the background, Mining has some of the most genuinely AFK methods in the game. The classic is the Motherlode Mine (level 30+): you mine ore veins for pay-dirt, feed it into a hopper to clean it, and empty the sack for a mix of ores plus golden nuggets. Veins last 36–40 seconds up top (faster on the lower level), so it needs only the occasional click. Our table puts it at about 13k XP/hr at level 30, scaling to 52k at 80 and around 64k XP/hr at 99 — not fast, but close to effortless, and the nuggets buy your Prospector kit. Unlock the upper level and the upper chute as soon as you can, and grab the Falador Diary shortcut to sit near the bank.

At the very top end, amethyst (level 92) in the Mining Guild is the most AFK method of all. You mine amethyst crystals for roughly 22k XP/hr — slow, but with very long gaps between clicks, especially wearing expert mining gloves, which stop the crystals depleting. It is the method people leave running while they do other things, and it pays around 290k gp/hr on the side. Note that Varrock armour 4 does work here for the double-amethyst roll, but the celestial ring does not.

Other low-effort options include gem rocks and the crashed stars from Shooting Stars — a fallen star can be mined for 40–60 minutes with barely any interaction, only needing a fresh click each time it degrades a tier. The Mining gloves from the Mining Guild are the key unlock for stretching these sessions: ordinary and superior versions stop iron, coal and similar rocks from depleting for a number of mines, while the expert gloves do the same for amethyst, turning a method that already needs little attention into one you can genuinely leave alone for a couple of minutes at a time.

The honest framing of AFK Mining is that you are trading raw XP per hour for the ability to do something else at the same time. Pay-dirt at 64k/hr or amethyst at 22k/hr will never match 3t4g's 126k, but if the alternative is not mining at all because granite is too demanding to keep up, the AFK rate is the one that actually accrues. Most players mix the two: tryhard granite when they can focus on the screen, and AFK pay-dirt or amethyst when they are working, watching something or half-paying-attention. Because amethyst and pay-dirt both pay gold, the AFK hours also quietly fund the rest of your account.

Between the click-heavy granite grind and the fully-AFK pay-dirt, there is a middle tier of methods that trade a little XP for far less mouse strain. The most popular is the Volcanic Mine minigame on Fossil Island (level 70+). Teams mine boulders for ore fragments, rotating around an unstable cavern before it erupts, and the rates are strong for the effort — our table shows roughly 64k XP/hr at level 70 climbing to about 94k XP/hr near 99 with a crystal pickaxe and a competent team. It is the recommended next step for players who mined iron to 70 and never want to learn tick manipulation.

Calcified rocks in the Cam Torum mine (level 41+, after starting Perilous Moons) are another low-effort option with a twist: as you mine, you collect blessed bone shards for passive Prayer XP — up to around 27,000–33,000 Prayer XP/hr on top of the Mining when tick-manipulated. Rates run roughly 40k XP/hr at level 50 to about 94k at 99 with tick manipulation, or closer to 49k without, making them a genuine two-skills-at-once method that ironmen in particular love. These calcified-rock figures come from the OSRS Wiki rather than the rate table below, so treat them as a guide to the method rather than a head-to-head with the table numbers.

Crashed stars deserve a mention as the most relaxed XP in the skill. As part of the Shooting Stars Distraction and Diversion, a star falls at a random spot and can be mined for 40–60 minutes before it depletes, only needing a click each time it degrades a tier. Mining a star also earns the stardust used to buy and charge the celestial ring. It is unpredictable to plan around, but it is the closest Mining gets to genuinely passive experience, and it works in free-to-play too.

Unlike Woodcutting, Mining has several methods that make real gold while you train. The standout AFK earner is amethyst at level 92, worth around 290k gp/hr for almost no effort — the closest thing to passive income in the skill. Gem rocks at the Shilo Village mine (level 40) are the other profitable staple: you mine uncut sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds, with profit topping out around 786k gp/hr at the fastest rates. In our table gem rocks run from 46k XP/hr at level 40 up to 75k XP/hr at 99 — that figure is the lower-effort, non-tick rate, which is how most players run them; the gem income, not the XP, is the draw.

For higher profit there is the Blast Mine minigame (best from level 75). You plant dynamite, blow open the rock and collect ores including valuable runite ore, which makes up most of the profit. It is more involved — you need dynamite, a chisel, a tinderbox and weight-reducing gear like Graceful and a ring of endurance to manage run energy — but it combines fast XP with strong gold.

Be realistic about the trade-off: the fastest XP methods (3t4g, iron power-mining) drop everything for speed and earn nothing, while the profitable methods are slower XP. Decide up front whether a session is for XP or gold, and check live ore and gem prices in our GE price tracker before committing, since runite and gem values swing with the market. As a rough rule, amethyst is the best blend of decent gold and almost-zero effort, gem rocks are the pick if you also want a shot at the pet, and the Blast Mine is where you go when profit per hour matters more than relaxation.

Mining is one of the most free-to-play-friendly skills in the game — you can reach 99 entirely as a free player. The route is simple: copper and tin from 1 to 15, then iron ore all the way to 99. As in members, the rate is about 50k XP/hr on iron, rising toward 75k once you unlock the free-to-play section of the Mining Guild at level 60 with its halved respawns. Triangle iron spots like the Al Kharid mine or the Dwarven Mine work well before then.

Free players miss tick-manipulated granite, the Motherlode Mine and amethyst, so iron really is the whole XP story — but it is a perfectly solid one, and the same power-mining habits (drop the ore, rotate rocks, use the best pickaxe up to rune) apply. The best free triangle-iron spots are the Al Kharid mine and the Dwarven Mine under Falador before 60, then the free side of the Mining Guild after. The celestial ring from Shooting Stars is available to free players and gives the same +4 boost, so it is worth grabbing — and because the Prospector kit comes from the members-only Motherlode Mine, free players simply train without an XP outfit, which makes the celestial ring the one boost actually within reach.

For free-to-play profit, the picture is different from members. The classic earners are mining coal (level 30), gold ore (40), mithril (55), adamantite (70) and eventually runite ore (85), all of which sell on the Grand Exchange, or feeding ore into Superheat Item for combined Mining and Smithing progress. Free players can also mine crashed stars and collect barronite from the Dwarven mine for extra value. The XP is slower than pure iron, but the bars and ore add up.

A few quests are worth doing specifically for Mining. Doric's Quest (1,300 XP), The Dig Site, Plague City (2,425 XP), The Giant Dwarf (2,500 XP), The Lost Tribe and Another Slice of H.A.M. (3,000 XP) together skip you from level 1 to 37 — the single most efficient early-game move, since it lets you start iron with an adamant pickaxe. Later, Heroes' Quest grants 2,575 Mining XP but needs level 50 Mining first.

Several diaries unlock Mining boosts rather than XP. The Varrock Diary gives the Varrock armour and its 10% double-ore effect on iron, granite and amethyst. The Falador Diary medium unlocks a Motherlode Mine shortcut, and its elite tier raises your chance of better ores from pay-dirt; the hard tier requires the Prospector helmet. The Karamja Diary medium opens the underground gem-rock area at Shilo Village, and the Desert Diary hard adds a direct teleport to the Bandit Camp granite.

A couple of unlocks are especially relevant for ironmen. From level 35, sandstone at the Quarry in the desert gathers thousands of buckets of sand for Crafting, while gem rocks supply the opals, jades and red topazes an ironman needs for early Crafting and Fletching. Soft clay, mined and used in water, feeds Crafting and Construction. Because Mining feeds so many other skills, an ironman often trains it partly as a supply run rather than purely for the XP per hour.

A few habits separate fast Mining from slow Mining. Always carry the best pickaxe you can use and pop the dragon pickaxe special before a session for the +3 boost. Power-drop ore rather than banking whenever XP is the goal. Shrink and zoom the client to cut mouse travel on tick-manip methods. And keep an uncharged celestial ring on for the hidden +4 — it is cheap and helps everywhere except amethyst.

Mining's skilling pet is the rock golem, which can drop from any Mining action with a chance scaled to your level and the activity. On average the fastest method to roll for it is gem rocks, so pet hunters often grind gems even when granite is technically faster XP. Like all skilling pets, hitting 99 does not guarantee it — it is pure luck — but the odds improve as your level climbs.

Finally, Mining is one of the most useful skills to bank for the late game, and this is what separates it from a gathering skill like Woodcutting that you train mostly for the cape. A high Mining level directly raises your damage on the rock sections of the Chambers of Xeric, where you mine guardians during the raid, and on the Tombs of Amascut — roughly level 85 Mining lets you contribute properly in both. Because raid teams notice a member who whiffs the mining phases, that utility is a genuine reason to push the level even if you are not chasing the cape for its own sake.

Mining also remains the supply line for two other skills: every bar you ever smith starts as ore you mine or buy, and the gems, sand and clay it produces feed Crafting and Construction. If you are working toward a maxed account, training Mining early pays dividends later because it stocks the materials those skills consume. That makes 99 — and the small invisible boost on the Mining cape — pay off long after the grind itself is done. For where to head next, the OSRS guides hub links every other skill and activity guide on the site, and the Mining calculator will tell you exactly how many ores stand between you and your goal level.