Arrow

Arrows are ammunition for bows and dispensers. They can be modified to imbue status effects on players and mobs.

Skeletons
Skeletons may drop between 0 to 2 arrows upon death, and the maximum amount dropped can be increased by 1 per level of looting used. Strays may drop 1 arrow of Slowness when killed by a player, not increased by looting. Arrows shot by a Creative Mode player, skeleton, or stray cannot be picked up, even in creative mode.

Trading
Villager fletchers will sell 8 to 12 arrows for 1 emerald as part of their tier 1 trades.

Retrieving
Arrows stuck in a block that were originally shot by dispensers or by players in Survival without the Infinity enchantment may be collected. Arrows originally shot by skeletons, illusioners, by players in Creative, or by players using the Infinity enchantment cannot be collected. Arrows cannot be retrieved when they are stuck in a player, and the player will not drop them when killed.

Cauldrons
Tipped arrows can also be obtained by using arrows on cauldrons that have potions. This is more efficient than using lingering potions as up to 21.33 arrows can be tipped per potion.

Usage
When fired, arrows will fly in a ballistic trajectory affected by gravity and drag in air, water, and lava and will travel approximately 3 blocks when fired parallel to a flat plane with no charge, 15 blocks average with medium charge, and 24 blocks average with maximum charge. Arrows in water get much more drag than in air: they will move less than 8 blocks before completely losing horizontal speed and starting to fall straight down, however the knockback of the arrow is not affected. They also leave a trail of bubbles in their wake. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle. The maximum height an arrow fired by a bow can reach is around 66 blocks.

There is a random variable to the trajectory of an arrow, given by  for the x, y and z coordinate. The inaccuracy is relatively small, but over larger distances it is very noticable.

An arrow's damage is determined by its speed. When fired from a fully-charged bow, arrows do of damage, with 1/5 chance to damage for. They inflict damage from a medium-charged bow, and only  from a bow with no charge. Arrows fired from dispensers always do of damage.

Immediately after hitting the target, there is a 0.5 second cooldown period during which the target will be immune to further damage. Arrows hitting the mob in this state will lose all speed and drop to the ground.

Arrows can be deflected by snowballs.

Arrows will also stick into objects they come in contact with and will remain there for exactly a minute before disappearing; the distance from the object and the angle determine how far into the target the arrow will go. Such arrows may be retrievable.

The custom effects (NBT tag ) of tipped arrows will evaporate after the arrow has been stuck for 30 seconds, but the primary effect (NBT tag  ) is not subject to evaporation.

If an arrow is stuck in a block and the block in which the arrow is stuck in is broken or disappears (e.g., leaves upon decay), then the arrow will fall straight down and damage entities below them.

Arrows can bounce off entities like minecarts and mobs immune to damage. The wither under the "wither armor" effect and a perching enderdragon are immune to arrows.

Arrows shot through lava (but not fire) will catch on fire and show an appropriate animation until they pass through water. Like arrows shot from a bow with the Flame enchantment, they can set other entities they hit on fire for 5 seconds and ignite TNT.

An arrow shot at a boat or any kind of minecart will cause the vehicle to break, dropping any components (including container contents).

Arrows can get stuck in players, although not any other mobs.

Redstone circuits
An arrow can activate a wooden button, wooden pressure plate, or a tripwire. If the arrow sticks in the switch they will remain activated until the arrow despawns after one minute. Other switches are not affected by arrows.

When arrows are fired into the sides of blocks, they change their orientation to point more downwards than their original flight path might indicate. This can cause them to intersect and thus trigger switches above them that they didn't actually hit, or block rails above them.

Explosions
Arrows are affected by explosions while they are in flight. Since explosions increase the speed of an arrow, they can also increase the damage dealt by them.

Tipped arrows
Tipped arrows are arrows that imbue a potion effect when hitting a mob or player. The duration of the effect is $1/8$ that of the corresponding potion, if applicable, and is not affected by the power of the arrow. The status effect is the same as the regular power effect for the potion. If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, tipped arrows will still be consumed.

The types of arrows are:



Spectral arrows
The Spectral Arrow imbues the Glowing status effect for 10 seconds. The Glowing effect creates an outline of the target, which is visible through blocks, and colored based on the target's team (white by default). If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, spectral arrows will still be consumed.

Normal and tipped arrows
Arrows have entity data which define various properties of the entity.

Spectral arrows
Spectral arrows also have entity data which define various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * By default, arrows spawn slightly offset to the right. If the player stands close to a wall and fires several arrows without moving their crosshair, the arrows will cluster around a point slightly to the right of the crosshair. If the player switches their main hand to be the left hand in options, the arrows will instead be offset to the left.
 * Arrows fired at Nether Portals will often skip through the portal block completely and fail to collide, thus continuing through to the opposite side of the block.
 * A tipped arrow with no potion effect (obtained via commands) will be called "Arrow of Splashing".
 * Arrows stuck in blocks will vibrate upon a world reload.