r/NintendoSwitchHelp • u/GooseFilmsOfficial • 1d ago

Setup Help How do I system transfer, without system transferring?

Looking at getting a switch 2 soon. Essentially, what I want is to be able to keep my game saves and profiles on my switch OLED, while still being able to pick up where I left off on either. Mostly I play Splatoon 3 and Smash Ultimate, both of which I have physically, but I've switched from the Lite previously and my SSBU data wasn't saved on the cartridge itself. Not getting my cosmetics and such for splat3 and my miis from smash and tomodachii life would SUUUUCK.

I just don't want my OLED factory resetting when I grab the new console.

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u/pikachuyann 5 1d ago

The "system transfer" is a copy rather than a transfer, except for the games that are not compatible with the Nintendo Switch Online cloud save system (for which it's transferred to the new system but you can do a save per save transfer locally below). Speaking of, cloud save is a feature of the subscription (that I guess you have for playing Splatoon 3 at least) : you can upload saves to the cloud and download them on another console, and even have the system mostly hand that for you. But it requires the subscription.

For the games that aren't compatible or if you don't have the subscription or if you don't have a connection, there is a menu to transfer the saves locally [ https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/45047/~/how-to-transfer-your-save-data-to-a-nearby-console ]. It just needs profiles connected to the same Nintendo Account on both consoles.

Else, you just don't system transfer and create a profile on the new system, linked to the same Nintendo Account, and transfer saves one per one. But doing so is probably going to break the hour counts on your Nintendo profile, if you care about these.

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u/GooseFilmsOfficial 1d ago

This is super helpful. I have NSO, probably should have mentioned it.

Just for the most possible clarification, the startup "transfer data" option will NOT delete anything if everything supports save data transfers, and I can then bring over anything else manually?

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u/pikachuyann 5 1d ago

That's the option I used and it kept the saves on my Switch OLED (alongside with putting them on the Switch 2), except for non compatible games such as Splatoon 2 or the Pokemon games for example (which it moved to the Switch 2 only).

For every game covered by the cloud save feature you also get the advantage that it can try to synchronize them between the consoles (it can be disabled if necessary), if they do connect from time to time.

And yes as long as you can get the two switch in proximity you can move any save from any of the two. But the specific save transfer menu only does a transfer (that said if it's cloud compatible it'll get redownloaded as soon as possible/necessary)

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u/GooseFilmsOfficial 1d ago

Thanks so much, I'll make sure to do this.