Articles
How to read a drop window, and how to plan for one
Every name on our list of upcoming drops comes with a window: a start, an end, and a countdown to it. This article explains where that window comes from, why nobody outside Mojang can give you the exact second, and how to use it so the name does not drop while you are not looking.
Where the window comes from
A name drops 37 days after its owner changed away from it. If we knew the second of the rename, we would know the second of the drop. Nobody outside Mojang sees that moment. What we see is the name with an owner at one look and without one at the next. The rename happened somewhere between those two looks, so the drop will happen somewhere between the same two moments, 37 days later. That stretch is the window.
A window is therefore not a guess or an average. It is the honest margin of what was observed: the drop is inside it, and nothing we saw says where.
Narrow and wide windows
The width of a window is the gap between the two looks around the rename. Short names, the three- and four-character ones, are looked at over and over, so their windows are usually a few minutes wide. A longer name that somebody searched is looked at less often, and its window can be hours wide.
Some windows also get narrower as the drop approaches. When a name is looked at more closely as its day comes, the margin shrinks and the countdown becomes more precise. The window you see on the day is the one to trust, so check the name again shortly before it opens.
Reading it in your own time zone
Times on the site are shown in the time zone of your browser, and the page names that zone next to them. If you are planning with a friend in another country, each of you sees the window in your own clock; it is the same window. If your computer's clock or zone is set wrong, the window will look wrong to you as well, so make sure it is right before a drop that matters.
Planning for a drop
- Check your own account first. If you changed your name less than 30 days before the window, you cannot claim anything during it. See how to change your name for the rules.
- Write the window down in your time. Its start and its end. The start matters more than the end: many people try from the first second.
- Be signed in and ready before it opens. Have the name change page of your profile open, signed in to the right account, with the name typed. Signing in takes longer than you think when you are in a hurry.
- Cover the whole window. Until the drop, the name keeps answering as unavailable. Trying once at the start and giving up is the usual way to miss it.
- Do not hammer the page. Asking too often gets an account made to wait before it may ask again, which is the worst thing that can happen during a short window.
Drops that do not happen
A window is a promise about time, not about the name. The previous owner may take the name back before day 37, and then it never drops: we notice it and take it off the list. Someone else may claim it seconds after it drops, which from the outside looks the same as no drop. And some names come back with no owner but blocked by Mojang. The guide to name drops covers these cases.
Reserved, date unknown
Sometimes a name you follow shows as reserved, date unknown. That means it has no owner and cannot be claimed yet, but we never saw the rename that left it: the first time anyone looked, it was already reserved. It will drop within 37 days of that rename, and we cannot say when inside that time. Such a name is worth following, but it needs more patience than a drop with a window.
Let the site do the watching
You do not need to keep the list open for weeks. Follow the name and we write to you on Discord or by e-mail when its owner leaves it, when its window is about to open and when it is free. Then you only have to be there for the window itself.
