How to Transfer Saves and Games to Your Nintendo Switch Lite From your Nintendo Switch

For those who have a brand new Switch Lite in their home, here’s how you go about bringing the save data from your previous Nintendo Switch to your new Nintendo Switch Lite

The Nintendo Switch Lite is out, and now you can take your favorite Switch games on the go even more than you could on your standard Switch. The compact device makes it more efficient to take it with you while you travel, entertaining you for hours on your way to work or you’re hanging out on a plane. While you have a new device to take with you to play all of your Nintendo games, you may not want to start over from scratch. Here’s how you transfer your games and save data from your standard Switch to your Switch Lite.

Transferring Switch Games and Saves to the Switch Lite

Relying on the Internet

Are you going to have internet access during your travel? If you are, you can reliably have your two switches on your Nintendo account. You’re going to need to designate one of them as your primary console, whereas the other is your non-primary. Because you have only had the original Switch as your primary console, you can set the Nintendo Lite as this identification. You’re going to want to do so if you’re planning to keep your original Switch at home more while you take your Nintendo Lite out while you travel. To make the process much easier, you’re going to want to ensure you’re subscribed to Nintendo’s online services so you can have your games save to Nintendo’s cloud network.

To transfer the save data of your favorite game, double-check the title can save this information to Nintendo’s cloud network. Not every title can do this. Once you’ve double-checked it, go to the Switch Home and flip over to the game you want to transfer information. Click on it, and make sure the cloud data lines up from when you last played it. You should see a distinct checkmark next to the title, along with a timestamp of the cloud data. If the dates line up from when you last played it, you should be good to go. However, it doesn’t hurt to fire it up to check on your progress to make sure it all makes sense.

When you’re ready, grab your Nintendo Lite and turn it on, signing into your Nintendo Account. You want to make it your primary Nintendo Console, so you can play every game you want to enjoy from this console when it’s connected to the internet. Download the game(s) you synced the Cloud data to on your original Switch, and wait for them to upload to the Nintendo Lite.

After the game finishes download the cloud information from your original Switch console should be on your Switch Lite. You want to follow the same process of double-checking the Cloud Data on your Switch Lite from your original Switch. It should have the distinct checkmark and timestamp next to it, matching the original Switch’s information. If it’s all there, you’re good to go.

Non-cloud Saving Games

If the game you want to play does not sync to Nintendo’s Cloud software, you’re going to need to take a few extra steps to get those save files over to your Nintendo Lite.

So, on your original Switch that contains all of your save data, you want to go to “System Settings,” > “Data Management,” > “Transfer Save Data.” You should see a black and white screen pop up with two options. You want to click the first option, the “Send Save Data to Another Console,” for your original Switch. When you click this, a list of the games saved to the Switch is going to pop up, and you’re going to have to pick what game you want to send over. Doing so means you’re going to erase all of the saved data from this console and transfer it to your new Switch Lite.

Grab your Switch Lite and go down the same list of settings as you did for the original Switch. However, this time, you want to click the “Receive Save Data,” which is on the right-hand side of the black and white screen. The information from your original Switch is going to sync to your Switch Lite after a matter of time.

That’s all the information you need to know to transfer your save data from your original Nintendo Switch to your new Nintendo Switch Lite. Enjoy the games you’re going to play while you travel, and have fun playing your favorite Nintendo titles on the go.