Magnetic elements, commonly referred to as 'magnetic', have the ability to be attracted by magnets and can be magnetized to create permanent magnets. Here is a list of magnetic elements and minerals:

Magnetic materials can be classified into two categories: magnetically hard and magnetically soft materials. Magnetically soft materials are easily magnetized, but the induced magnetism is usually temporary. For instance, if a permanent magnet is rubbed along a nail or a screwdriver, the nail or screwdriver becomes temporarily magnetized and emits its own weak magnetic field. This temporary alignment of iron atoms in the same direction is caused by the external magnetic field.

Similarly, magnetically hard materials can also be magnetized by a strong external magnetic field, such as those generated by an electromagnet. The key difference is that magnetically hard materials will remain magnetized indefinitely unless they are demagnetized by an opposing magnetic field, raised above their Curie temperature, or allowed to corrode.

Permanent magnets, which are made from alloys consisting of varying amounts of iron, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements such as samarium, dysprosium, and neodymium, are created using magnetically hard materials. Among these, the neodymium magnets are the strongest and are made from an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron. Permanent magnets are challenging to magnetize because their atomic magnetic domains are not easily aligned like magnetically soft materials, but once they are aligned, they remain so indefinitely.