Capes are the rarest class of cosmetic in Minecraft. Skins can be made, bought or copied freely; official capes are released only through limited-time promotions - and once a promotion ends, Mojang never re-issues its cape. That policy is why this guide is short: at any given moment there are only a few live routes to a cape, and right now, in July 2026, they look like this.
Method 1: Attend the live event (ends August 9, 2026)
The one cape with a live earning route is the Moonlight Trail Cape, awarded for attending Minecraft Experience: Moonlight Trail in person. The Buenos Aires run at Ciudad Universitaria closed on August 9, 2026, and the event's next city is Santiago, Chile from October 1, 2026 - see the Santiago and Bulgaria report. In Buenos Aires the route was: attend with a valid ticket, complete the beacon-lit trail, and a single-use code is emailed within about 72 hours. Santiago is expected to work the same way, though the organisers have not confirmed the cape reward there yet.
Method 2: Catch the next free promotional drop
Most modern capes come from free online drops: watch a few minutes of Minecraft on Twitch or TikTok during a campaign window, claim a code, redeem it. The catch is the window - recent history shows how brief they are:
- Purple Heart Cape - 15 minutes on Twitch, 16 days (May 2024)
- Follower's Cape - a TikTok LIVE comment, 31 days (May-June 2024)
- Home Cape and Menace Cape - 3 minutes on Twitch/TikTok, 19 days (March-April 2025)
- Copper Cape - a one-week community quest finale (October 2025)
- Builder Cape - 5 minutes on Twitch, and its codes still ran out in 18 hours (May-June 2026)
As of mid-July 2026 no online drop is live - the Builder Cape's window closed June 14. To catch the next one on day one: follow @Minecraft, watch minecraft.net's news feed, and join our Discord - we post every new cape campaign the moment it goes live. And be careful with rumors: the "Alton Towers cape" going around is not real - the event's reward is a hat, and the viral "deleted @Minecraft post" announcing an Axolotl Cape is fabricated, as our Alton Towers fact check documents.
Method 3: Enter cape giveaways
MC Capers runs regular giveaways of rare capes from our own stock - free to enter, winners drawn publicly. Current and upcoming rounds are listed on the giveaways page. It is the only free route to capes whose earning windows have already closed.
Method 4: Buy a cape that can no longer be earned
Every cape from a closed promotion still exists on the accounts - and in the unredeemed codes - of players who earned it during the original window, and those codes remain fully valid. That is the market MC Capers serves: we hold verified stock from the original promotions, check every cape or code before delivery, and deliver most orders within minutes. Browse the shop for live prices, and if you want to know exactly how buying works and why it is safe, read Is MC Capers Legit? - it walks through delivery, proof and guarantees.
How cape redemption works
- Go to minecraft.net/redeem and sign in with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft.
- Enter the 25-character (5x5) code.
- The cape attaches to the account - not to a single device or edition.
- Equip it in the Bedrock dressing room or the Java skin settings; it also displays on elytra.
- One cape of each type per account; codes are single-use.
The capes you can no longer earn
For the full history of each retired cape - what the promotion was, how long it lasted, why it closed - the stories are here: Copper, Purple Heart, Minecraft Experience, Follower's, Home, Menace, Crafter and Builder. And if you want to know which are hardest to find, see every cape ranked by rarity.