Empty the chest, then hold Interact
Take every item out of the chest, then hold your bound Interact key to pick it up. The announced default is E; use your own binding if you have changed it.
Do not follow the older press R first instruction. Developer replies in October confirm that the old Furniture mode step was removed. One wild-chest report was resolved after the player found an overlooked item and fully emptied the chest.
Place it again from your bag
Once the Chest item is in your inventory, use its Place Chest action and select the new position. Keep an empty inventory slot and a clear destination as practical preparation, then follow the placement prompt.
The earlier recorded inventory tooltip shows Use: Place Chest. If your item shows a different prompt, follow the displayed action rather than trying to force an old key sequence.
Wild chests and your own chests
The October replies cover both a player-placed chest and a chest found in the world. In both cases, emptying the container comes before pickup.
This is an empty-container move, not a way to transfer a filled chest’s contents automatically. Move valuable items separately. The behavior of a full bag or a chest containing overlooked items should not be treated as a guaranteed safe transfer.
Version 0.26.2_3 increased chest health. Breaking a chest is not the same operation as using the intended hold-to-pick-up action.
References
- steam-announcementssteam-announcements