How To Transfer Your Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island To A New Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch OLED is now available and there is a good chance you’re upgrading from an older Switch to the new version. The Nintendo Switch has a built-in transfer process that covers the vast majority of games and saves, however, there are a few exemptions. One of the biggest is for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. There is a separate process for transferring your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island over to a new console.

How to transfer your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island to a new system

To start off, you will need to make sure Animal Crossing: New Horizons has the latest update and download the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Transfer Tool from the eShop on your old system. After doing that, you will need to complete the user transfer process, which will transfer over most of your other game saves. The system should ask if you intend to continue using your old Switch. You should select yes, that way your account doesn’t get removed from the old Switch.

On the new Switch, you will need to download New Horizons and the Transfer Tool. After that, open the Transfer Tool on both consoles and select “Let’s Begin.” The old Switch will need to be the “Source” option and the new Switch will need to be the “Target” option. The old Switch will need to select the island and hit Transfer Data once the new Switch is detected. After confirming on both Switch consoles the transfer process will begin. A message will appear when the process is complete at which point the island save data will be on the new Switch and be deleted from the old Switch.

If you had the Island Backup setup on your old Switch, it may need to be re-enabled on the new Switch. There will be an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct on October 15, featuring new content coming to the game in November.

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