How to get a cape in Minecraft

Want to add some flair to Alex or Steve? Here’s how to get a rare cape for your Minecraft avatar.

Minecraft is, at its core, a game about customization. From how to build your house to how to play, the game encourages players to explore, craft, and do whatever they want.

As a primarily first-person game, the one area where customization isn’t as important in Minecraft is when it comes to the player character.

There are no skins or traits that Minecraft players can equip to their avatar – either Steve or Alex – to show off any sort of a unique flair, outside of downloading a community-made mod. But there is one piece of flair that players can actually get without mods: the cape.

What is the Minecraft cape?

The cape is a purely cosmetic item that is obtainable in several ways, depending on which version of the game you own.

Wearing the cape does not give the players any new abilities or stats, and capes are not craftable in game. They can only be obtained by completing certain objectives outside Minecraft, or by using mods.

What kinds of capes are in Minecraft?

A cape is one of the few ways to make your character look unique.

Officially, there are 27 capes in Minecraft, but most of them are no longer obtainable. 24 of the capes were made available by obtaining MINECON in the early days of the game (pre 2017).

After Minecon Earth in 2017, Mojang stopped giving out these cosmetics and disabled outstanding cape links, meaning that these items are extremely rare.

That means, there are only three types of capes that are obtainable, depending on the version of Minecraft you own. The migrator cape is unique to Java, but the vanilla cape is available to both platforms.

The final cape is the pan cape, which is available during Minecon Live 2019, but was only made available to Bedrock players.

This means that, essentially, only two capes can be obtained as of writing.

How to get capes in Minecraft?

Obtaining the vanilla cape – which available on both platforms – is quite simple. Players who own both the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft will be given the vanilla cape on each platform.

The other cape, the migrator cape is only obtainable in the Java Edition for players who migrate their Mojang account to a Microsoft account. To do so, simply follow these steps:

1. Login to minecraft.net with your Mojang account credentials.
2. Click “Move My Account”.
3. Click “Get Code” to send a verification e-mail to the address on your Mojang account.
4. Enter the verification code where prompted and click “Submit and Start Migration”.
5. Create a new Microsoft account and password (or you can login to an existing Microsoft account if you have one).
6. After filling in the information, you will also need to create an Xbox profile and Gamertag (this can be different from your Mojang and Microsoft Gamertags).
7. Click the “Complete Move” prompt and confirm the move.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you should have the option to equip the migrator cape during a future sign in.

If you’re looking for more Minecraft tips and tricks, make sure to check out more of our guides below:

Best cheats and commands | How to join Minecraft roleplay servers | What does Depth Strider do? | The best servers for all types of gameplay | The best mods to download | Where to find the Pigstep Music Disc | How to get Honeycomb | How to make a Brewing Stand | What does Smite do? | How to make a bed | How to tame and breed horses | How to teleport in Minecraft