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Cape

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For the feature in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Cape.
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Steve, wearing a MINECON 2011 cape.

Capes are special commemorative items that are shown on the back of the player's skin. They are purely cosmetic and they do not alter any gameplay. Wearing a cape also changes the appearance of the elytra, fitting the look of the respective cape. Unlike skins, capes cannot be custom-made and have to be earned. In addition, they cannot be transferred between accounts. Some capes can be earned through various promotions, while others are not available to the general public.

Various mods offer unofficial capes for players to use. These capes, however, are only visible to other users of those mods. Only capes added by Mojang Studios are featured below.

Obtaining

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With the exception of the Pan Cape, capes that are available to the general public can only be obtained through limited-time promotions. Some types of promotions that distribute capes are social media campaigns, event servers, and in-person events. Capes cannot be obtained after their respective promotions have ended.[note 1]

Modern capes are often distributed to both editions of the game at the same time, although logging into Bedrock Edition is often required to activate such capes in Java Edition.[1]

Overview

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Java Edition

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The Minecraft.net cape selection menu, as it would be viewed with a hypothetical account with all of the capes. The order that capes are displayed in varies per user.

In Java Edition, capes can either be equipped on the skin creation menu in the Minecraft Launcher, or in the profile page on the Minecraft website.

For about a decade after the introduction of capes in 2010, Java Edition capes could be split into five groups:

  • Mojang capes, given only to Mojang employees.
  • MINECON capes, distributed to attendees of the convention. Around 27,000 of these capes exist.[note 2]
  • Personal capes, which were given to single individuals as appreciation for something they did.
  • Volunteer capes, given to contributors in various programs, such as Crowdin, Mojira, and the Realms map making program.
  • Competition capes, given to those who had won competitions in Mojang's other games, Scrolls and Cobalt. These competitions were short-lived, with only the top players winning these capes, so only around 30 of these capes exist.

Of these, only MINECON capes were available to the public in significant numbers. Therefore, at the time, capes were far more exclusive items than they are today.

As Minecraft became more popular, however, this exclusivity caused capes, and accounts that had them, to become premier items on black markets.[2] Partly due to this, accounts with rare capes have been known to be common targets of hacking attempts[3][4] and unwanted solicitation. This exclusivity grew in 2017 when MINECON events became livestreams and stopped distributing capes, leading to a period of almost five years between MINECON 2016 and the account migration in 2021 where no new Java Edition capes could be obtained by the public.

Since the account migration, which granted the Migrator Cape to all Java Edition players who migrated, various capes have been available to the general public without being tied to in-person events. This is likely in order to avoid the problems associated with the aforementioned exclusivity.

Bedrock Edition

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The Bedrock Edition cape selection menu, as it would be viewed with a hypothetical account with all of the capes.

In Bedrock Edition, capes can be equipped in the Capes section on the Character Creator. As Character Creator items, they are assigned a rarity, usually Legendary.

Capes are also available as part of some skins included in certain skin packs, but they can only be equipped with their corresponding skin. Most notably, the MINECON 2016 Skin Pack included Steve and Alex skins wearing all MINECON capes from 2011 to 2016. However, these capes were locked to the skin pack, so they cannot be used with custom skins. For documentation purposes, capes from skin packs are considered to be separate from standard capes, which can be freely equipped with any skin. Statements about capes on this wiki will exclude these by default.

There were a few exclusive capes on Bedrock. Although cape support on Bedrock Edition was added on 2016, it was used exclusively for skin packs until 2019, when the Founder's Cape was released. A second cape, called the Pan Cape, was given to all Bedrock Edition players for free starting in 2020 and is still given out to this day. Thus far, it is the only cape on either edition to automatically be given out to all players without any known time limit.

Not long after this, however, the Java Edition account migration occurred, which ultimately led to the introduction of cross-platform capes.

On May 8, 2025, the Founder's Cape and Pan Cape were distributed to Java Edition players as well. The Progress Pride Cape is currently the only cape exclusive to Bedrock Edition.

Cross-platform capes

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After the migration from Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts in 2021, ownership of both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition was tied to a single account. In 2022, both editions were merged into one bundle, ensuring that all players would always have access to both. These changes allowed capes to be obtained in both editions at the same time after fulfilling the requirements, which became the standard. All capes released to the public after the merger were released for both editions, with the sole exception of the aforementioned Progress Pride Cape.

There may have been some hesitancy on Mojang's part to grant capes distributed through Bedrock Edition event servers to Java Edition accounts. This is supported by the fact that the Cherry Blossom Cape and the MCC 15th Year Cape, the first two capes tied to event servers, were not originally announced for Java. Ultimately, both of these capes were added to Java Edition after the conclusion of their respective events. Since then, capes added by live events have been announced for and immediately granted to both editions upon completion of the requirements.

Legacy Console Edition

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Three Xbox 360 Edition capes were known to exist, none of which were permanently made available to the general public.

Like Bedrock Edition, most of the Legacy Console Editions also featured skin packs, some of which came with capes.

The now-defunct Xbox 360 marketplace had some cosmetic Xbox avatar items based off of capes available for purchase. These include avatar versions of the Xbox 1st Birthday Cape and all of the MINECON capes released before 2016. These can be viewed on the Xbox 360 avatar items page.

List of capes

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Account-related capes

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These capes were given to players simply for owning or logging into the game during certain time periods.

Staff capes

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These capes were only given out to employees of Mojang or Microsoft.

Event capes

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Physical event capes

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These capes were released in connection with in-person events, such as MINECON, Minecraft Experience, or TwitchCon.

Virtual event capes

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These capes were released through or in connection with online events, such as Minecraft Live, social media campaigns, or event servers.

Personal capes

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These capes were manually given to people from the community, often as appreciation for something they did. They are only available in Java Edition.

Competition capes

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These capes were given to players who won competitions of Mojang's other games. They are only available in Java Edition.

Volunteer capes

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These capes were given to volunteers in various programs. They are only available in Java Edition.

Other capes

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Announced capes

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On April 22, 2026, Anthony Toczek, the Head of Influence at Mojang, stated that they were "actively working" on a YouTube cape, but were "still building the tech to make drops work there".[7]

Temporary capes

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These were briefly shown on all for certain periods of time without being added to their accounts.

Skin pack capes

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Main article: Skin pack capes

Various skin packs for Bedrock Edition include capes as part of their included skins.

API testing capes

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Main article: API testing capes

These capes were added in some form by Mojang Studios, but should not be considered official.

Vote Update capes

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Main article: Vote Update capes

These capes were part of the April Fools joke snapshot 23w13a_or_b. Within the snapshot, they can be obtained by passing proposals. All of them intentionally use the misspelling "caep".

Unused capes

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These capes were designed, but never actually released.

MINECON 2011 cloak vote

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Minecon 2011 Cloak Candidates.
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The winning Minecon 2011 Cloak Candidate.

These capes were featured in a poll where readers could vote for the design of the MINECON 2011 cape.[8] The red creeper cape won with 42% of the votes[9] and was chosen as the cape design for MINECON 2011.[10] The blue cape with the pickaxe, which received 33% of the votes,[9] was later reused for MINECON 2012. The remaining cape designs, however, have never been used.

11 other capes were designed for the vote, but were ultimately excluded from it. The existence of and designs for these 11 capes were revealed in The World of Minecraft. The unused MINECON 2011 cape candidates represent the collection of unreleased cosmetic textures designed by Mojang Studios during the third quarter of 2011. Aside from the winning Red Creeper variant and the deferred Diamond Pickaxe design, three other officially pitched options were completely scrapped following a public community vote. Additionally, historical design documentation published years later revealed an expanded catalog of eleven concept variations that were fully designed but excluded from public polling entirely.


Publicly Voted Unused Candidates

Cloak #3 (The Golden Apple / Iconography Cape)

  • Vote Standing: 3rd Place
  • Total Allocation: 13% of public ballots (3,207 total votes)
  • Design Profile: Cloak #3 was designed to directly spotlight high-tier survival mechanics by leveraging early in-game status items. The canvas utilized a deep chocolate-brown base layer constructed with a grid-aligned border trim to mimic structured leather. Centered on the upper-middle quadrant of the cape was a low-resolution rendering of a Golden Apple, a prominent item within beta-era gameplay mechanics. The shading of the apple graphic utilized legacy yellow, gold, and light amber hex codes, mimicking the flat item sprite before enchanted variants received distinct animated glints.

Cloak #4 (The Earth / Terrain Cape)

  • Vote Standing: 5th Place (Last)
  • Total Allocation: 3% of public ballots (871 total votes)
  • Design Profile: Positioned as a literal representation of the game's terrain engine, Cloak #4 featured a green and brown biological pattern. The top third of the layout was rendered in vibrant lime and forest green shades, mirroring the legacy 2D pixel layouts of standard Grass Blocks. The lower two-thirds transitioned abruptly into cross-hatched brown layers designed to resemble subsurface dirt profiles. Due to the high visual noise and lack of a central, iconic focal point, it performed poorly with the community demographic, securing the fewest votes in the event's history.

Summary of the 2011 Public Vote Metrics

Candidate Identifier Core Graphical Theme Community Name Final Standing Vote Count Vote Share Release Status
Cloak #1 Diamond Pickaxe Pickaxe Cape 2nd Place 8,278 33% Reused as the official MINECON 2012 Cape
Cloak #2 Creeper Face Red Creeper Cape 1th Place (Winner) 10,516 42% Released as the official MINECON 2011 Cape
Cloak #3 Golden Apple Golden Apple Cape 3rd Place 3,207 13% Unused / Scrapped
Cloak #4 Grass & Dirt Layers Earth/Terrain Cape 5th Place 871 3% Unused / Scrapped
Cloak #5 Central Pale Square Moon/Portal Cape 4th Place 2,317 9% Unused / Scrapped

Concept Rejections (The Excluded Eleven)

In mid-2024, Mojang Studios released a comprehensive physical lore book titled The World of Minecraft. The publication included historical art pages revealing that early character designer Junkboy had generated eleven additional exploratory textures for the 2011 convention that were never selected for the public webpage poll.

Archival review of these textures by wiki data-miners cataloged the following structural themes:

  • The Weapon Variants: Two distinct designs centered on combat mechanics. The first featured a classic iron sword angled downward against a dark background, while the second utilized an alternative green-and-white layout focusing on structural weapon symmetry.
  • Industrial Tools: A hybrid design that merged an iron sword blade with a pickaxe handle, forming a silhouette that community historians noted resembled a classic hammer-and-sickle geometry.
  • Survival Utility Objects: Two individual concepts built around common item blocks: one explicitly rendering an upright, burning Torch on a gray back-shading, and another utilizing stacked horizontal lines to accurately render a wooden Ladder infrastructure up the length of the cape.
  • System Logic & Engineering: A pure redstone-themed model composed of deep crimson backing integrated with bright red geometric circuitry lines to mimic an active Redstone Dust logic line.
  • Abstract Patterns: A high-contrast, black-and-white alternating checkerboard configuration. This file configuration was highlighted by community members due to its visual similarities to the official 15th Anniversary Cape distributed over a decade later.
  • Character Characterizations: The most unusual asset in the collection depicted a stylized, high-contrast character head featuring an afro hairstyle, sunglasses, and a smiling, cyclopean single-eye layout.

All eleven internal developmental variants were permanently archived without receiving official asset indexes within the runtime engine. They remain entirely inaccessible outside of community-made skin modifications.

Recreations of unused capes
Row 1 2011
Minecon Cape
2012
Minecon Cape
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Customer support tool capes

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Mojang has confirmed that a number of unused Java Edition capes have existed in the Customer Support tool, which have never been shown to the public. Some of them, such as the Birthday Cape, were first given an owner a long time after they had been made.[11]

History

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This section details more general history regarding capes. The history of specific capes is documented on their respective articles.

Java Edition

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Java Edition Beta
1.0Exclusive capes, then called "cloaks", are added on December 20, 2010. The first cape, the Classic Mojang Cape, is added at the same time.
December 25, 2010All players are temporarily displayed with the Christmas 2010 Cape, marking the first time that the public can use a cape in-game. Six days later, the New Year 2011 Cape is displayed on all players in the same manner. These capes are only shown for the event and are not actually given to players for future use.
Java Edition
September 22, 2011Exclusive cloaks for MINECON attendees are announced as the first cloaks available for the public to obtain. A poll is put out for players to decide on the design. The winning design is used for the MINECON 2011 Cape, with the runner-up being used for the MINECON 2012 Cape.
October 28, 2011Notch renames "cloaks" to "capes", tweeting "We've reached a decision. The 'cloaks' will no longer be called 'cloaks' because they're not. They're capes. Sorry about that."
1.915w41aA player's cape becomes invisible if that player is equipped with elytra.
16w06aThe elytra texture now defaults to the cape texture if no custom texture is uploaded and the player owns a cape.
May 12, 2020Mojang disables all unused MINECON cape codes.
October 21, 2020The Migrator Cape, the first cape to be distributed to the public in significant amounts without requiring attendance to in-person events, is announced.
August 15, 2022Following the ownership merger of Java Edition and Bedrock Edition, the Vanilla Cape, the first cape to be available on both editions, is announced.
May 8, 2025The Founder's Cape and the Pan Cape, initially exclusive to Bedrock Edition, are distributed to Java Edition players. With this, the Pan Cape becomes the first cape to be given to all players on both editions without being tied to a limited-time promotion.

Bedrock Edition

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Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.15.9Cape support added.
Added the MINECON 2016 skin pack, which contains skins with all Java Edition MINECON capes from 2011 to 2016. It is available to all players for a limited time.[12]
v0.15.10Capes no longer clip through armor.
When obtaining skins from the MINECON 2016 skin pack, the player is now prompted to make a "free" purchase in their device's store. If the player is on Android and is prompted to make a payment, they could use the code MINECON2016 to get it for free.
October 7, 2016The MINECON 2016 skin pack is no longer available - it has been removed from all app stores and its redemption code is now expired. Players who obtained it while it was available are still able to use it.
Bedrock Edition
September 28, 2019The Founder's Cape, the first Bedrock Edition cape to not be tied to a skin pack, is announced during MINECON Live 2019.
1.13.0?Worn capes now change the texture of elytra.
?The Founder's Cape is implemented. It can be equipped onto Marketplace skins with the character creator, but due to a bug, it does not work with custom skins.
1.13.1The Founder's Cape can now be equipped onto custom skins.
1.16.0beta 1.15.0.51The Pan Cape, the first cape to be automatically given to all players, is given to all Bedrock Edition players around this time.

Issues

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Issues relating to "Cape" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Gallery

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Mojang images

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Notes

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  1. ↑ Various capes are obtained by redeeming codes. In these cases, new codes can only be obtained during the promotion period. However, although many cape codes were explicitly stated to have redemption deadlines, Mojang has apparently not enforced these deadlines for capes released in 2024 and beyond, allowing for codes obtained during the promotion period to be redeemed long after it ends.
  2. ↑ https://namemc.com/capes shows a rough estimate of how many capes of each type have ever been equipped on Java Edition. Note that it is possible to hide previously equipped capes or to simply not equip an owned cape, both of which will cause a cape to not count towards these totals. These totals also do not include Bedrock Edition players, who may later add to the Java Edition counters of cross-platform capes if they equip a cross-platform cape there. Finally, as there is no way to detect capes that are removed from accounts by staff members, the totals will continue to count such capes. Cape removal is very rare and does not happen for most players, but it has happened in certain niche situations, such as when accounts with rarer capes are stolen, or when personal capes are given out for testing purposes/by accident.

References

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  1. ↑ "Get Minecraft: Java Edition Capes Before Promotion End Dates" – Minecraft.net.
  2. ↑ https://x.com/Marc_IRL/status/1319158179591344128
  3. ↑ https://x.com/cheapshot/status/1240855558619463680
  4. ↑ https://x.com/billyK___/status/1666259127692083202
  5. ↑ "#minecraftmemories Time to pull another photo of out the archives :) Once upon a time we used to have the ability to turn capes on & off on in #MinecraftXBLA #MinecraftX360 This is the cape that Microsoft folks had when they played online! @mojang had one too & our 1st birthday!" (archived) – @PopsRamjet on X (formerly Twitter), May 16, 2019
  6. ↑ "When we first released on X360, for the lucky few there were capes and a few unique skins...β€οΈπŸ’š @4JStudios" (archived) – @PopsRamjet on X (formerly Twitter), April 30, 2022
  7. ↑ "MCYT community is incredible (2T+ views is wild) and it’s 100% a core partner. We’re actively working on it just still building the tech to make drops work there πŸ’š" – @Anthony_Toczek on X (formerly Twitter), April 22, 2026, replying to "real talk, why has minecraft NEVER done a youtube cape. we have 3 for twitch and 1 for tiktok but the platform that helped build minecraft for 16+ years doesn't get anythinggg" – @silentwisperer_ on X (formerly Twitter), April 22, 2026
  8. ↑ "Minecon Swag - Cloaks" (Archive) by Lydia Winters – mojang.com, September 22, 2011. "We have made a few suggestions for cloak designs and we need your help deciding on the official cloak. Voting ends Monday, September 26th."
  9. ↑ a b "Which should be the official MineCon 2011 Cloak?" (Archive) – Polldaddy.com.
  10. ↑ "MineCon speakers: The Yogscast" (Archive) by Lydia Winters – mojang.com, September 27, 2011.
  11. ↑ "Just found this linked from the wiki 😜 I think this is one of the capes available in the CS tool forever ago, and I wanted to note the restraint it took to not add it to my account, because as soon as I did the world would know. Guess we never used it for anything specific then?" – @Marc_IRL (Marc Watson) on X (formerly Twitter), January 14, 2022
  12. ↑ MINECON 2016 skins incoming! Get 'em while they're hot! - Mojang.com; September 22, 2016
  13. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/live/jGNgh5zEFkY?&t=911

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