Animal Crossing Island Transfers To Nintendo Switch 2 Guide

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The long awaited Nintendo Switch 2 has finally arrived, but how does your existing Animal Crossing: New Horizons island fit onto the new console and what options are there?

In this article, we’ll cover how the Nintendo Switch 2 system transfer handles Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data and all of the ways to move your island between systems. Plus, what to do if you’d like to start a fresh island, while preserving your old one.

First-Time Setup Nintendo Switch 2 Transfer

The easiest and simplest way to transfer your existing Animal Crossing: New Horizons island to a new Nintendo Switch 2 system is to simply use the built-in system transfer. This is available as an option when setting up the Nintendo Switch 2 for the first time.

In addition to copying over all of your downloaded games and save data for most games to your new Nintendo Switch 2, the system transfer process automatically moves (not copy) over your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island too. There’s an additional screen during the process that specifically lists games like Animal Crossing that will be moved, so look out for that to reassure yourself!

Notably, there doesn’t appear to be any way to specifically opt-out of moving your Animal Crossing data though — either you do the entire system transfer with your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island included or no system transfer at all.

If you choose to pass on the full first-time setup system transfer, keep in mind it’s not currently possible to change your mind and start the process later without factory resetting the system.

However, if you do pass on the full system transfer, it’s still possible to transfer your Animal Crossing: New Horizons separately using the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Transfer Tool covered in the next section.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Transfer Tool

Separately from the full Nintendo Switch 2 system transfer process, you can use the standalone Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Transfer Tool application to move your island between consoles, including to Nintendo Switch 2.

Use this method if you skipped the first-time setup system transfer, wish to move your island that did transfer over to another different system, or if for any reason your island wasn’t moved in system transfer.

The Island Transfer Tool must be downloaded for free from the Nintendo eShop separately from the game — just search for ‘Animal Crossing’ to easily find it. Note that you’ll need to have it downloaded on both your old Nintendo Switch and your new Nintendo Switch 2.

Start up the Island Transfer Tool on both systems, and simply follow the on-screen instructions. It shouldn’t take longer than five minutes to complete the entire process. The console you wish to move your island to will be the ‘target’ system, while the console that currently holds your island will be the ‘source’ system.

What If I Want To Start A New Island On Switch 2?

If your goal is to begin a fresh new island on your new Nintendo Switch 2, while keeping your old island safely stored on an   old Nintendo Switch system, you can use the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island Transfer Tool to move the island back to the original system after completing the system transfer.

Your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island automatically comes along for the ride when using the system transfer as an intended convenience, but this might not be ideal if you want to start a new island.

So if your intention is to keep your old island on the old system while starting fresh from scratch on your new Nintendo Switch 2, you’ll essentially have to move your old island around twice like this, assuming you use system transfer:

1. Move old island from Switch 1 to Switch 2 using first time setup System Transfer.
2. Move old island back from Switch 2 to Switch 1 using Island Transfer Tool.
3. Start a new island on Switch 2, now that the old island is on Switch 1.

That’s kind of cumbersome, but I suppose Nintendo rightly assumed most players would prefer to seamlessly move their island to the new system.

Of course, if you simply don’t care about preserving your old island, you can simply reset your Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data on the Nintendo Switch 2 and not bother with the transfer tool to bring the old island back to another system. That’ll let you get started fresh sooner.

You Can’t Have Your Island On Both Systems At Once

Keep in mind that Nintendo has fairly strict rules around Animal Crossing: New Horizons island saves that are different from most other Nintendo Switch games. Generally speaking, it is not permitted to have your island or save available on multiple systems at the same time, and all of the transfer methods have been designed to follow this policy.

Unlike most other games, you can’t easily copy your Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data using the regular Save Data Cloud Backups feature as part of Nintendo Switch Online.

When you do use the Island Transfer Tool, the island is deleted from the original source system after transferring to a new system. The same applies to the Nintendo Switch 2 system transfer where the island will be removed from the Nintendo Switch 1 after a transfer is complete.

Emergency Island Backup & Restore

There’s technically a third option for ‘transferring’ your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island called Island Backup, but it’s intended for emergency use in the case of a Nintendo Switch system being lost, stolen, or broken.

Restoring your island using the Island Backup system requires contacting Nintendo customer service to use, presumably to reduce potential workarounds of the policy restricting an island being saved on two systems at once. You can find more information on this option at Nintendo’s support site here, but keep in mind this option is a last resort.

This article reflects the best known information as of Nintendo Switch 2‘s launch day of June 5th, 2025. We’ll update as needed if any new information or corrections come to light. Thanks to Polygon for system transfer screenshot.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Guides Nintendo Switch 2