How to claim Mystery Gifts

Claim the free Pokemon Mystery Gifts through the Pokemon Home app.

The mainline Pokemon games are connected through Pokemon Home, the app that lets you store over 1,000 Pokemon and transfer them to and from games across generations. As a perk, Game Freak will periodically offer free Pokemon through Mystery Gifts, though the process to claim them is a bit trickier than it is in the games themselves.

To claim Mystery Gifts in Pokemon Home, you have to use the mobile app. Although the app is available on Switch, the option to claim Mystery Gifts is only present in the mobile version. After downloading the mobile app, be sure to sign in and connect your Nintendo Account. We recommend that you double-check to make sure that this is indeed the account connected to your Pokemon Home profile, as there is no way to change it after you make the decision.

In the Pokemon Home mobile app, tap the green circle with three horizontal lines at the bottom of the screen. From this menu, select Mystery Gifts. Then, press Gift Box. From here, you can see all of the available Mystery Gifts. Selecting each gift will show you what's inside, and you can also see why you received the gift in the first place. If you have save data for their respective games, you can receive the starter Pokemon from Scarlet/Violet, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, and Sword/Shield with their hidden abilities, as well as some solid IV distribution.

Once you’ve claimed your Mystery Gift Pokemon, you can boot up the Switch app and see them in your first available box slot. You can now transfer them to any (compatible) Pokemon game of your choice, including Scarlet and Violet, which received Home support in a May 2023 update. For everything in the world of Pokemon, count on Shacknews.

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

Donovan Erskine posted a new article, How to claim Mystery Gifts - Pokemon Home