Nether portal mechanics: what happens if I destroy the overworld portal?

Question

tldr; What happens to the nether-portal in the nether, if you destroy the portal in the overworld? Will the portal in the nether disappear? Or will taking it spawn a new random portal in the overworld?

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I recently started playing Minecraft again after a long hiatus, on an extremely hostile server making survival very difficult.

In order to survive, one must utilize the nether to get far enough away from spawn, in order to find trees, grass, animals, etc.

My buddy and I are semi-established, yes still relatively close to spawn, so in constant danger of being raided. Especially considering how we followed a pre-made nether-highway to get to where we are, others could get here too.

Now, we should probably relocate even further away from spawn, probably diagonally via. our own nether-pathway and create our own portal to ensure our safety, however I do not know much about the mechanics of the nether portal and am wondering: What happens to the nether-portal in the nether, if you destroy the portal in the overworld?

Bonus question: Baked potatoes vs. Bread?

Jim Jones · Accepted Answer

It doesn't affect the one in the Nether. Really when you reconstruct it again you teleport to the same place where you have an automatic portal. Same thing when you destroy the portal in the Nether and reconstruct it.

Correct answer by Jim Jones on June 15, 2021

Peter Green · Answer

Nether portals do not have any long-term association with each other (there is a short-term destination cache). Destroying a portal will not affect any other portals.
When a player or entity passes through a nether portal minecraft will calculate the corresponding coordinates in the other dimension. It will then search around those coordinates for a nether portal. If it finds one the player or entity will be teleported there.
If a player passes through a nether portal and an appropriate destination portal cannot be found a location will be chosen near the calculated destination coordinates and a new portal will be generated. This is unlikely* to be in the same location as the portal you destroyed. I'm not sure if this also works for entities or not.
Many players prefer to build both nether portals by hand to get more control over their size and location.
* Unless the original portal was itself an automatically generated one and you thouroughly destroyed it.

Nether portal mechanics: what happens if I destroy the overworld portal?

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