This page lists known Cheats and Secrets found in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and is compatible with the PC/Steam versions of Skyrim. This has been updated to include Skyrim Special Edition, the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim, and the current-gen versions on PS5 and Series X/S. Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page, our PC Graphics and Tweak Guide, and our Easter Eggs pages for more information.

We also have dedicated pages for PC Console Cheats, PC Cheats, PS3 Cheats, and Xbox 360 cheats.

Infinite XP in Skyrim

You can attack the Jarl of Whiterun, and gain infinite xp without any consequences. This has only been tested for the one-handed, two handed, and sneak skills. All you have to do is go to Dragonsreach, and attack the Jarl. For sneak, crouch behind the Jarl, once he looks away from you, attack him. If you space out your attacks by a few seconds, depending on how mad he is, you won't get in trouble for this. He is immortal so, you can keep doing it indefinitely. If you attack him continuously, then you will get a bounty and attacked by the people in the room.

Armor Duplication

This is a little glitch in the game which allows you to duplicated your pieces of armor with the use of mannequins. To get your own mannequins, buy the house in Solitude (25,000 gold) and furnish it enough until your mannequins appear. Then you simply place what armor you want onto the mannequin. Before exiting the menu, take all of the armor that you just put on off. Walk out of the house then walk back in, and the armor should still be on the mannequin and you should also have a set in your inventory!

PC Cheats

Hit Tilde(~) to bring up the developer console, and enter these codes for the desired effect. Note: certain cheats you can enter a second time to toggle off the effect. Achievements are disabled when you enter cheats. Some cheats can cause bugs later on, or cause situations which may "break" certain quests. Adding items (except quest items) is almost always safe, as are commands that display information (debug text, attribute values). If you're unsure, don't save your game after using the command & DISABLE the autosaving features, or simply be sure to delete the affected saves when you're finished experimenting.

List of PC Cheats

Many of the cheats which worked in Oblivion and Fallout 3 will work in Skyrim as well. Remember to check the Item Codes list for the Add Item cheat.

• tgm - Toggles God mode (Invincibility, infinite carry weight)
• tcl - Toggles No-clip mode (Fly, walk through walls)
• coc "Location" - Teleports you to that location, An all item room is coc QASmoke.
• psb - Give all spells to player
• player.advlevel - Force a Level Up (No perk points added)
• caqs - Complete all Quest Stages
• tmm,1 - Toggle Map Markers
• tfc - Free camera
• saq - Start all quests (Warning: Not a good idea!)
• qqq - Quit the game
• coc qasmoke - Testing hall (You'll have your items, enchanted items may crash game)
• tai - Toggle Artificial Intelligence (Freezes enemies)
• tcai - Toggle Combat Artificial Intelligence (Freezes enemies)
• tg - Toggle grass
• tm - Toggle menus, HUD
• tfow - Toggle FOW
• kill - Kill targeted thing
• resurrect - Resurrects targeted thing
• unlock - Unlocks targeted locked thing
• lock X - Lock targeted chests, doors or people, where X is the difficulty level of the lock (0 - 100)
• killall - Kill all nearby enemies
• removeallitems - Removes all items of targeted NPC
• movetoqt - Teleport to quest target
• enableplayercontrols - Enable controls during cinematics
• tdetect - Toggle AI Detection (Avoid getting caught stealing)
• setownership - Changes ownership of target so you can steal it
• duplicateallitems - Duplicate items (Target container or NPC and copy the RefID)
• fov XXX - Change field of view.
• advancepclevel - Increase your Level
• advancepcskill (skillname) X - Increase skill level
• advskill [[[[[Skill|skill]]|skill]]] XXX - Increase targeted skill by XXX amount
• setpcfame - Set targeted character's fame
• setpcinfamy - Set targeted character's infamy
• player.modav [attribute name] [amount] - Apply modifier (+ or -) to the named attribute or skill. Skills are entered as they appear in-game, without spaces or quotes, except for Speech and Archery, which are "speechcraft" and "marksman" respectively. Attributes are things like "health" or "carryweight", again without spaces or quotes. NOTE: Using the modav command will cause attributes modified by it to always appear in green, as the game thinks they've been buffed. You can try "setav" instead (untested), but in other Bethesda games this has sometimes led to permanent problems.
• player.modav carryweight X - Set Carry Weight
• player.modav burden X - Increase Burden by X
• player.modav Dragonsouls X - Add Dragon's Souls to your pool, allowing you to improve your shouts.
• player.setav speedmult X - Increase movement speed, where X is a multiplier (percentage)
• player.setav Stamina X - Set Stamina
• player.setav Health X - Set health
• player.setcrimegold X - Set to 0 if you want it to be free
• player.setav Magicka X - Set Magicka
• player.setlevel X - Set Level
• player.placeatme X - Spawns an NPC at your location, where X is NPC ID
• player.setscale X - Change scale of player, where X=1 is normal
• player.IncPCS [[[[[Skill|Skill]]|Skill]] Name] - Increase the level of targeted Skill by one.
• showracemenu - Brings up the race selection/character customization menu. NOTE: This will reset your character to level 1 and all your skills to their initial base values.
• [target].getavinfo [attribute] - This will display a short list of information about the given attribute (health, skills, etc.) of the specified target. You can omit "[target]." if you first click on the target with the mouse, or you can replace it with "player." if you want the info on your character. For example:[br/]player.getavinfo lightarmor
• player.additem XXXXXXXX "###"- Adds items based on Item Codes, where XXXXXXXX is the item code, and ### is the amount you want.
• player.additem 0000000f "999" - Add 999 Gold
• player.additem 0000000a "100" - Add 100 Lockpicks
• player.addperk XXXXXXXX - add perks based on perk codes, i.e. player.addperk 000c44b8 would add the adept alteration perk, found on the Item Codes page. Make sure your skill level is high enough to have the perk before you enable it or it may not work properly and that you add any multi-tier perks in order.
• help - List console commands
• help keyword X - Search by the keyword, number is search mode (optional), listed in "help" commands.  Can be used to search for commands, item ids, quest ids, and variables by matching any part of the record.  For example, "help strips" will return the item ID for "leather strips" among other potential results.  Items, quests, locations, etc. with spaces in the same can be more specifically searched for by putting quotes around the entire search term.  For example, 'help "iron ingot"' will return results specificly referencing iron ingots.

Training Exploit

There are two ways that you can get free training. If you have a companion that can train you, buy his training. After you pay for the training, look in his inventory. All of the gold that you paid for the training with is now in the companions inventory. You can take it back out and use it to buy even more training. You can also similarly do this without a companion, but you pick their pockets to get your gold back.

Invincible Dog Companion

Go to Falkreath and find the smith called Lod. He will ask you to find his dog. You can find the dog Barbas outside of the village and it will take you to the Shrine of Clavicus Vile. Once you speak with the Daedra Lord, the dog will accompany you until you finish the "A Daedra's Best Friend" quest. The dog is technically a quest item and so can't be destroyed. It will automatically attack enemies who approach you and since he can't lose any health, he is THE BEST TANK EVER. Note: you may take another companion in addition to the dog.

Max Out Destruction Skill

When you join the Companions, you will be prompted to go outside and duel with one of the members. When you are outside, switch over to destruction magic and use it against that person repeatedly. He will keep telling you to use a sword, but you WILL gain experience -- and he won't die. You can do this for as long as you wish to rake up easy XP for magic.

Fast Horse Swimming

If you're going through water deep enough that your horse can swim, dismount and mount the horse to go faster -- you'll actually "run" in deep water.

Extra Ore When Mining

If you mine until you get your first piece of ore, then cancel the action, mine again (again until you get one piece of ore) and then cancel once more you can get 1 extra piece of ore by mining once more.

Easy leveling of most skills

• For Block, one-handed/two-handed, spells, and archery. Buy a horse, set the level of gameplay to master, slice away, burn, or bash with a shield, Before the horse dies, rest for an hour to restore it's hp, rinse and repeat.

• For sneaking, go to the High Hrothgar. Find the monk meditating/praying in the hall, hide in the shadows come up on him and sneak attack him. Wait for him to reset (He sits back down) and.. rinse and repeat. If you Attack him without killing him, repeatedly, He'll attack you and you'll permanently be made into a popsicle by his non stop ice shout. (This can also be done to other quest specific NPC's, Mercer, etc.)

• For Speech, go to the Black-Briar meadery. Speak to Ungrien at the counter, and choose the option, "Tell me about Maven Black-Briar", then click the persuade option. Repeat as needed. For a combined Speech, Smithing and Enchanting see Enchanting below.

• Alchemy, Eat everything, It's simpler then mixing potions and poisons. You can also sit next to an area with ingredients that respawn, pick them, eat them, and rest until they respawn.

• Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, and Conjuration. Continuously use spells on yourself when you have them available. For conjuration, summon a creature from the plains of oblivion repeatedly. Rest for an hour after magicka depletes, repeat.
  For restoration, look for crystal traps or fire pressure plate traps for a constant flow of damage to heal.

• Lock picking, just pick everything you can, it's about the only way aside from the trainers available. Also, if you do the thieves guild main quests, you'll obtain the skeleton key, before returning it, you can leave with it and use it repeatedly, until you max out your picking. So you're not wasting gold on picks. Then return the Skeleton Key later and finish the Nightinggale/Thieves Guild quests.

• Pickpocketing, pay someone to teach you, turn around and pickpocket your funds back from them. Once you can no longer train in pickpocketing, just have fun emptying people of their belongings.

• Light/Heavy armor, once you're a high enough in level, find some lower level or weaker opponents, and sit there and let them wale on you. To make sure your health doesn't deplete extremely fast, set the game level to novice and heal when neccessary.

• Smithing,the easiest and cheapest way to master smithing is by obtaining leather and leather strips at every opportunity you can. With the leather and leather strips, forge leather bracers. They only take one leather and three leather strips. It's the cheapest way because any animal you kill that drops a hide/fur/pelt is giving you free leather/leather strips. Buying leather and leather strips is also very affordable and every smith and gerneral goods merchant will have bundles of it.

• Easier way to master Smithing: Go to Winterhold and start the Mage's College questline, and eventually you'll be sent to a Dwemer lair. You'll know when you get there cause youll be attacked by these little robots spiders. Every time you kill one, pick up the struts and stuff left over. Also, search the dungeon thouroughly and empty it of any and all things labeled "Dwemer". Also, make sure to bring many picks because there's a ton of ore in there too. Once you get to a town, go to a smelter and use the Dwemer metal you picked up to make Dwarven ingots. You'll have a ton (I had like 450). As long as you have the Dwarven Armour skill, you'll rocket up in levels. Make Dwarven bows ten at a time, then improve them to legendary on a grinding wheel. It's also good to have a ring, gloves, armour, and helm enchanted with a smithing bonus. If you start to run out of supplies, just fast forward 48 hours and get all the iron you'll need from the blacksmith. If your speech is around 50 you'll sell the legendary bows at well over 100 a piece. Since it takes 300 Dwarven ingots to make 100 Legendary Dwarven bows, you'll also make about 20,000 gold. I spent all of my gold buying up everything from every blacksmith in the town of Whiterun over and over again to get my level up even faster. Once you have enough skill points, definitely purchase the dragon armour and crafting ability. You'll never need money again.

• Enchanting - Enchanting can be done at the same time as smithing.  This method requires some gold to start (to buy ingots, leather strips and filled soul gems) and it requires the disenchanting of at least one item (in order to learn the enchantment).  After you make as many Iron Daggers as possible, (see Smithing above) and go to some of the magical vendors around (such as Farengar Secret-Fire in Whiterun's Dragonreach) to buy filled soul gems. Use an enchanting table, create as many enchanted Iron Daggers as possible. The more powerful the enchantment, the more you can use this method as your Iron Daggers will be worth more in trade. Higher level spells make for better enchanted items and thus will sell higher. This method should increase Smithing, Enchanting and Speech if you continually build, enchant and sell.

Crafting Godmode Armor on Consoles

Any console player knows that there are no console commands that can allow godmode on their Xbox or PlayStation. However, using some of the existing exploits you can craft a set of armour with unlimited enchantments. You are still bound by the number of enchantments you can place on your armor but those enchantments will not have any ceiling. All you need is 1) a stack (50+) of salt pile, cyrodilic spadetail and abecean longfins, 2) Some fortify alchemy gear and 3) perks in the Enchanting and Alchemy trees (I can make this work with maxed out Enchanting tree up the middle branch and just one perk in Alchemy). Now use your fortify alchemy gear and start mixing fortfiy restoration potions. After making a potion (I suggest one Abecean / Cyrodylic and one salt) drink the potion and unequip / re-equip the fortify alchemy equipment. Each time you drink a potion and unequip/re-equip your fortify alchemy gear the fortify alchemy enchantment will grow stronger. This process is sped up using stronger starting enchantments and the extra enchanted gear glitch (Falmer Helmet + Circlets, Gloves, Ring and Necklace for 5x fortify alchemy enchantments). At the end of this process create fortify echanting potions (Hagraven Claw + Snowberries) with massive boosts. You can now double enchant each piece of armor with a maximum enchantment.

As a tip for what enchantments to use I suggest for the best results - unlimited regenerate health, unlimited stamina, zero magic school cost x 5 (unlimited magica works as well however with zero magic school cost your enchanted weapons will not use up any of their charge), unlimited carry weight, maxed out resist magic (85% cap), fortify barter (necklace only). You will have enchanting slots free for other enchantments but you will not need them (you are now unstoppable) or you may notice that other enchentments don't work so well (when passing 100% in some fortify skills such as sneak or pickpocket the bonus turns negative making it impossible to sneak / pickpocket). If you do not want to be overpowered I suggest you keep your health / health regenration and weapon bonuses to below 150% and your difficulty level high as you will otherwise lack any sense of danger in the game. Alternatively just set your dificulty to easy as the result is the same, I just did this out of curiosity. Added bonus - this is by far the fastest way to level alchemy with your last fortify restoration potion being able to max out your alchemy in one go because of the exponential increase in price. 

Dragon Priest Mask Cheat

If you are wearing a Dragon Priest mask, you can also equip a Falmer helmet at the same time. This works with all Dragon Priest masks, including the one Miraak wears from the Dragonborn Expansion.                                                  

Use Follower To Haul Stuff

If you drop all the stuff you don't need on the ground and then tell your follower to pick it up, you can have them carry everything regardless of their max carry weight.

Unlimited sprint glitch

Equip a torch and sheath any weapon your carrying because it will not work if you have something in you other hand. You then move and TAP the sprint button don't HOLD the sprint button; your stamina will be depleted but you will still be sprinting. In order for this to work you have to have at least 1 stamina point in the stamina bar or it will act like the sprint has failed. I call this the Courier Glitch since you can almost never catch a imperial courier since they never run out of stamina.