How to Get and Use Pokémon Home

Pokémon Home has finally arrived, and trainers around the world will be diving into Nintendo’s online storage system right away. At least, they would if they knew how to do it. The inner workings of this latest leap into the twenty first century has some players pretty stumped. But we’re here to help. Here’s how to use Pokémon Home on mobile, Switch, and even 3DS.

How to Get Pokémon Home

Pokémon Home has separate apps across two distinct devices. There’s a mobile app, which can be found here for Android, and here for iPhone. And then there’s a Switch app found on the Nintendo eShop. Just load the eShop on your Switch and you should see the app right there, but search if not. There’s no Pokémon Home app for 3DS, but it does tie into the previously released Pokémon Bank app, found on the eShop.

How to Use Pokémon Home

Once you have all the apps you’re going to want to get started. What is more important to the Pokémon franchise than trading creatures between players. This feature is locked to the mobile app, so grab your smartphone and start trading. It’s done on the left tab, so swipe to it. Here you’ll see a display of the most commonly traded Pokémon lately, and a few options. Here’s what they all are.

Wonder Trade is where you put a Pokémon out there for anyone to trade for. You choose one that will go away permanently and you’ll receive whatever they chose, so basically a random trade. GTS is where you can be more selective, putting something up for trade and selecting what others can send you for it. Room Trade is literally a party up area for trades, where you can jump in with others and trade among you at will. And Friend Trade is what it sounds like; trades between friends.

If you want to know about trading between 3DS and Switch/mobile, or transferring from Home to Sword and Shield or Let’s Go, then see those guides.

Swipe two screens to the right (or one to the left) and you get to your actual Pokémon boxes, which correlate to the boxes found on the Switch app as well. Here you can scroll through your collection, search, sort, and move around as you wish. It’s also where you can see IVs, change markings, and view other stats of each of your Pokémon. But that’s pretty much all you can do here. Swipe away on the mobile app and you’ll hit the main screen, showing your starter and a few options.

Challenges can be selected at the top to see what points can be earned. There’s also the Friends menu and news. And that’s how to get and use Pokémon Home on mobile, Switch, and even 3DS. More features will surely be released soon, including trading from Pokémon GO, so check back for updates as that comes out.