Nothing to track.

What we store, and why

Only Arctic's own server stores anything about you, and only what its features need: a profile so your friends can find you, your friends list and privacy choices, the cosmetics and looks you picked so other Arctic players see them, the messages you send, and the crash reports and suggestions you choose to send.

Your profile is tied to a Mojang-verified sign-in. For an offline account it is a random key your launcher made on your PC, plus a friend code and a recovery code. Arctic uses no hardware IDs and no passwords.

Your Microsoft and Minecraft sign-in tokens stay on your own PC, in a local file. They are never sent to Arctic.

The sections below go through each part in detail.

This website

arcticlauncher.com sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads no third-party scripts. Fonts are served from this domain.

If you pick a colour theme, that choice is saved in your own browser's local storage so it sticks between visits. It never leaves your device.

Like any website, requests pass through our hosting and CDN (Cloudflare), which process IP addresses to deliver pages and block abuse. We don't use those logs to profile visitors.

The Discord member count is fetched by our server from Discord's public invite page; your browser doesn't contact Discord unless you click the link.

Downloads are served by GitHub, under GitHub's privacy statement.

The launcher

Arctic Launcher has no telemetry and no analytics.

It connects to Mojang and Microsoft (sign-in, game files, Java runtimes), Modrinth and the Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge and Forge servers (mods and loaders), GitHub (updates), Arctic's own server (looks, friends, messages, voice rooms and the server list), and the Minecraft servers in your list, to show their ping and who's online.

Account tokens are stored only on your computer, encrypted and tied to your machine, and are sent only to Microsoft, Xbox and Mojang. Deleting the data folder removes everything.

The launcher downloads game files, mods and clients from Mojang, Modrinth, GitHub and similar sources you choose. Like any download, those services see your IP address and the file you asked for.

Play together connects you directly to your friend. A public relay is used only to set that up, or to carry the encrypted connection when a direct link isn't possible.

Voice chat is off until you turn it on. It connects your launcher directly to the other Arctic players on the same server in the same way, so your voice never passes through Arctic's server, and like any direct connection the other side can see your IP address. On a server running Simple Voice Chat, your voice also goes to that server, as it would with that mod.

The Arctic server

cosmetics.arcticlauncher.com shares the look you pick with other Arctic players. It stores your Minecraft UUID and name, the skin, model, cape and cosmetics you chose, and any skin or cape image you upload.

While you're in a world, the launcher checks in about once a minute with the player you're playing as, so others see your Arctic badge and emotes. Only the last check-in and the emote you're playing are kept. Which server you're on is sent only if you let friends see it, and only friends see it.

Friends: your Arctic profile keeps a display name, a friend code, the Minecraft accounts you linked (each proved by signing in with it), your friends, requests and invites (which expire after ten minutes), and your choices of what friends may see. Linked accounts stay hidden from friends unless you show them. Offline accounts prove themselves with a random key the launcher made on your PC (never hardware IDs); a recovery code, of which only a hash is kept, moves them to a new PC.

Messages and screenshots you send a friend are deleted automatically after 30 days, and only the latest 500 per pair of friends are kept. A screenshot is only ever served to the two of you.

Voice rooms hold only a hash of the server address (the address itself never leaves your PC), your launcher's connection id and the player you're playing as, and you drop out as soon as you stop checking in.

The public server list stores the servers owners submit (address, name, description and tags) and their live status, refreshed by pinging them.

Crash reports are off until you choose. In Settings you pick Ask (each time), Always or Never. When you agree, the launcher sends the launcher and game versions, the loader, your operating system, the crash's title, the end of the game log and the end of the launcher's own log, after removing your name, folders, tokens, e-mail addresses and IP addresses. They're used to fix crashes, grouped by cause, and kept only as long as needed to fix the bug.

Suggestions and bug reports are sent only when you use "Suggest a feature or report a bug" on the launcher's About page. They contain your message, an optional way to contact you, the launcher version, your operating system and, only if you attach it, a log with names, folders, tokens, e-mail addresses and IP addresses removed. The team reads them in a private dashboard and can mark them done or delete them; only the latest 2000 are kept.

Share codes store the bundle you share (an instance's mod list, a HUD layout, a crosshair, default game settings, client settings or a profile) so anyone with the code can import it. They never include account files.

If you share a skin to the community gallery, the skin, the name you give it and your player name become public to other Arctic players. You can remove it at any time; reports from other players are stored so an item hides after a few of them.

It never receives your password or sign-in tokens. It confirms who you are the same way a Minecraft server does, by asking Mojang.

Your IP address is only used in memory to rate-limit requests; it isn't stored.

For each account the server also keeps one "last active day", the date it was last seen. It is used only for retention statistics, to see how many people keep using Arctic, and not to track what you do.

The Discord server

Arctic's Discord server has a bot that keeps what members post (the text, the author, the channel and links to attachments) for 14 days and then deletes it. When a message is deleted, its text is posted to a private channel only the server's staff can read, so that moderators can see what was removed.

Discord itself processes everything you post there under Discord's own privacy policy.

How long we keep things

Chat messages and the images attached to them: deleted automatically after 30 days, and only the latest 500 per pair of friends are kept.

Friend invites: ten minutes. Voice room check-ins: until you stop checking in. Your "online" check-in: only the latest one is kept.

Crash reports: as long as needed to fix the bug. They are reviewed and deleted by hand, and only the most recent ones are kept. Suggestions and bug reports: the latest 2000.

Your profile, friends list, privacy choices and looks stay until you ask us to delete them. Skins you shared to the gallery stay until you remove them or ask us to.

Deleting your data

To have what Arctic's server holds about you deleted, e-mail [email protected] with your friend code or Minecraft name (for an offline account, the friend code). We'll remove your profile, friends, looks and anything you shared, and anything you sent us in a crash report or suggestion that we can find. We do this by hand.

Everything on your own PC, including your sign-in tokens, lives in the launcher's data folder. Deleting it, or uninstalling, removes all of it. It never left your computer.

Questions

The launcher is open source, so you can verify all of this in the code. Questions are welcome as a GitHub issue, or by e-mail at [email protected].