2d ago

Thoughts on deleting my Microsoft account, including my Minecraft license?

I haven't played Minecraft since 2015, but I get the feeling I might again in the new few years as I wanna find new hobbies. I know that game has changed a whole lot but I don't have any official online data on it.

I've had this Microsoft account for over a decade and its probably full of personal information that I wanna let go of, I've already exported all my data. I would need to pay $30 for another copy of Minecraft, same price I paid in 2013. I just did a bunch of searching and its not possible to transfer my Minecraft license to another account.

33 comments

If you're only interested in singleplayer or can convince your friends to move: There's a free, open source alternative called Luanti.

Minetest

I never made a MS account, so I no longer own Minecraft since they stopped accepting Mojang accounts. Sometimes I wish I had just bit the bullet and made one so I can still own Minecraft—I know I can pirate it, but it's less convenient, and also I don't know how well pirated Minecraft works with multiplayer. In any case I've just not played Minecraft in a long time, and not since Minecraft stopped accepting Mojang logins.
I am surprised you can't transfer your licence to another account though. Since when they were making the switch to Microsoft accounts, they let you just transfer your licence from Mojang onto any old MS account.
Ultimately it's up to you. I guess in your shoes I would be more erred towards deleting just because of all that personal information sitting around. Of course you can't guarantee MS will "forget" it, but storage costs money, and they likely don't want to keep around all your old data when most of it is not very profitable data to have. In my case, in hindsight, I'm now erring on the side of wishing I had just made an account, since there'd be no other data tied to that account and I wouldn't have used it for anything other than Minecraft.
- I never made a MS account, so I no longer own Minecraft since they stopped accepting Mojang accounts.
  My sibling in christ: you never owned Minecraft, then.
  
  I know. It's a verbal shorthand.

I dunno, although pirating Minecraft is rather easy, I'd be a bit wary of deleting an account you spent money on like this. Doubly so if you used Hotmail.
Nothing worse than finding you need access to an old account, then realizing it's registered to an old email address you deleted. Headache!
If I was you I'd delete all the data you can from the account, set a new very strong password, enable 2FA and leave it dormant. Never know when you might need it again ya know?
- this is the way. you will be glad you didnt delete it completely.
  use this opportunity to delete all accounts you can that are associated with that email that are actually useless.

Nothing will unharvest your data. Do your best moving forward.
- Take this opportunity to prune your Microsoft data and inject false information. Become a trans man liberal vegan who thinks Trump is great for privacy. Algorithm does need good data after all.
  Deletion is probably not necessary. People change all the time, let the computer think you changed into something else.
  
  Don't waste your time with that. Do something useful.
  
  Unfortunately this is pretty much useless. They collect so much data from so many people that they will simply not use your data for training.
  They will continue to sell it though.

Luanti is quite good https://www.luanti.org/
EDIT: Also, check Vintage Story https://www.vintagestory.at/
- Seconding vintage story. I can never play minecraft again, VS is simultaneously more stressful AND more cozy. Just got a big update recently, too.

1 - I don't believe you can use Minecraft without Microsoft any more - Mojang accounts were discontinued in favour of Microsoft accounts, and unmigrated accounts were deleted in 2023.
2 - Many updates have happened, but the launcher still lets you download and play every single version released, from major (x.), minor (.xx), to snapshots and one day specials, to the very first working version. Note: the first version is also available to play online for free. The last non-Microsoft update was 1.7.2 I believe
- in retrospect i'm so glad i pirated that shit. and i was itching to buy it.
- I still find MultiMC/it's forks much better for the sole reason it has an "instances" folder and every folder has it's own Minecraft version. Idk why but I feel that way is more organized
  
  Fjord Launcher allows for offline accounts, it's a fork of Prism, which itself is a fork of PolyMC, which itself is a fork of MultiMC, which itself is a fork of yer mum
  
  I use prisim mc. I forget why they forked but it works fine for me.

Check out Luanti. It used to be called Minetest. It's a libre version of the same thing.

33 comments