Pokemon Home Transfer Guide: How To Transfer From Pokemon Bank, Sword & Shield, And Let's Go

Pokemon Home is now live on Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android devices. The new service lets you store Pokemon you’ve caught in various games in the cloud and bring them into the series’ latest installments, Sword and Shield. (You can even nab free Pokemon just for using the service.)

Through Pokemon Home, you can bring over Pokemon you have stored in Pokemon Bank on 3DS to the Switch, meaning it’s now possible to get a handful of non-Galar Pokemon in Sword and Shield, including other regional forms. However, the transfer process can be a little confusing, so we’ve put together this guide explaining how to move Pokemon from Bank and other games to Home.

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Before we get into how to transfer your pocket monsters, it is recommended you first download Pokemon Home on your mobile device and link that to your Nintendo Account before doing the same on Switch. If you want to bring over monsters from Bank, you’ll also need to have a paid Pokemon Home subscription, as that is one of the features reserved exclusively for the premium plan. You can learn more in our Pokemon Home pricing guide.

How To Transfer From Pokemon Bank To Pokemon Home

If you have a paid Pokemon Home plan, you can use either the Switch or mobile version of the service to bring over Pokemon you have stored in Pokemon Bank. If you’re already a Pokemon Bank user, you’ll need to download the latest version of the app from the 3DS Eshop before you begin. If you’re new to the service, you can use Pokemon Bank for free for 30 days, letting you transfer your pocket monsters even if you don’t have a subscription.

Once the Pokemon Bank update is installed, a new option to Move Pokemon to Pokemon Home will appear on the menu. Choose this and you’ll be presented with a list of all your Pokemon Bank boxes. You can then select which boxes you’d like to transfer over to Home. Note that this will move the entire box; you won’t be able to individually select Pokemon within a box to transfer over.

After choosing which boxes you’d like to move, press Done on 3DS. You’ll then need to go into Pokemon Home to obtain a Moving Key and perform the actual transfer. In the mobile version, you can generate a key by selecting Move Pokemon from the Options menu; in the Switch version, you’ll need to select the 3DS icon at the bottom of the main menu. Press Begin Move and the service will generate a Moving Key, which you’ll then need to type in on 3DS. The Moving Key will only be valid for three minutes, however, so you won’t have much time to use it.

After you enter the Moving Key in Pokemon Bank, the transfer will begin. The process may take a couple of minutes, but afterward you’ll find the Pokemon you moved waiting in one of your Home boxes. Before you bring any Pokemon over, however, keep in mind that Pokemon transferred from Bank can no longer be returned to that service, so only transfer monsters if you don’t plan on using them any longer on 3DS.

How To Transfer From Sword/Shield And Let’s Go To Pokemon Home

Pokemon Home is also compatible with Let’s Go Pikachu / Eevee and Pokemon Sword / Shield, so you can store any Pokemon you’ve captured in those titles to the service. Fortunately, this process is much simpler than transferring Pokemon from Bank. In the Switch version of Home, select Pokemon on the main menu and you’ll be presented with a list of the Switch Pokemon games you own. Choose a title and you can move Pokemon from it to Home, and vice versa.

As with Bank transfers, there are a couple of caveats to keep in mind when moving your pocket monsters. Any Pokemon you transfer from Let’s Go to Home can be retrieved in their original game or in Sword and Shield (if they appear in the Galar Pokedex); however, if you bring a Pokemon from Let’s Go into one of the Gen 8 games, it can no longer be returned to its original title. Pokemon from Sword and Shield, however, can freely be moved to and from the service.

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