Background

Before you continue

Because OptiFine is an old, closed-source project, it has evolved to cause many mod incompatibilities, and doesn't do as good of a job as some the alternatives out there.

Also, if you're using the Fabric mod loader, there's no native support for it, and the current workaround is known to be buggy and quite unstable, due to the very nature of OptiFine and OptiFabric.

Therefore, you should consider the use of OptiFine alternatives whenever possible. See the wiki page about it.

Installing OptiFine standalone

This method requires you either have the Minecraft version you wish to install OptiFine on to be installed through the vanilla launcher or to recreate the folder structure somewhere on your system (like /.minecraft/versions/1.18.2/1.18.2.jar).

Go to https://optifine.net/downloads and find your respective Minecraft version (eg. 1.18.2).

Once found, click mirror. Now click the download button to download your OptiFine jar file.

Execute the OptiFine jar file and change the selected folder location if required, then hit the "Extract" button and save the jarmod file somewhere you'll remember.

Now in PolyMC edit the instance you wish to install OptiFine on, open the Version tab and click Add to Minecraft.jar, select the extracted OptiFine jarmod (the file ending in _MOD.jar) and confirm.

OptiFine will now be installed as a jarmod in that instance so you can remove the installer and extracted jarmod.

Installing OptiFine on top of a modloader

Make sure you know how to download mods before attempting to install OptiFine.

Go to https://optifine.net/downloads and find your respective Minecraft version (eg. 1.18.2).

Once found, click mirror. Now click the download button to download your OptiFine jar file.

Remember where you have kept your .jar file, and continue to the PolyMC launcher. Follow the steps from the download mods page, and choose either Forge or Fabric(!warning).

Forge

Forge does not require any extra steps besides adding the .jar for OptiFine into PolyMC.

NOTE: Some versions of OptiFine don't work on Forge!

Fabric

Note: If you're playing on Minecraft versions older than 1.16, you might need to also install the Fabric API mod.

Fabric, unlike Forge, does not natively support OptiFine, and will require the installation of OptiFabric.

Go into the Mods tab on the left side and then in the right menu select Download mods, then select CurseForge and search OptiFabric. Once found, click Select mod for download, and then press OK. You may now procede with adding the .jar file for OptiFine into PolyMC.

If there were results shown in the search, your Minecraft version may not be compatible with OptiFabric. In this case, you can either try the Forge method, or choose to wait until support for your Minecraft version is added.

Quilt

There's no way of running OptiFine on Quilt at the time of writing.

Adding the .jar file into PolyMC

Go into the Mods tab on the left side of the Edit Instance menu, and then click on the Add .jar option to the right of the window.

Now, find and select the .jar file you downloaded earlier, and it should now be added to your instance. Enjoy!


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