Nintendo Switch Lite is out, and now you can take your favorite Switch games with you even more than you can with your standard Switch. The compact device makes it more efficient to take it with you while you travel, keeping you entertained for hours on the way to work or while hanging out on an airplane. While you have a new device to take with you to play all of your Nintendo games, you might not want to start all over again. Here's how to transfer your games and save your standard Switch data to your Switch Lite.
Transferring Switch Games and Recordings to Switch Lite
Relying on the Internet
Are you going to have internet access during your trip? If you are, you can reliably use both of your switches on your Nintendo Account. You will need to designate one of them as your primary console, while the other will be your non-primary console. Since you only have the original Switch as your primary console, you can set Nintendo Lite as that ID. You're going to want to do this if you intend to keep your original Switch at home while you pull out your Nintendo Lite on your trip. To make the process much easier, you will need to make sure that you have subscribed to Nintendo's online services so that your games are saved to Nintendo's cloud network.
To transfer your favorite game's save data, check the title to save this information to Nintendo's cloud network. Not all titles can do this. Once you've checked the box, go to Switch Home and switch to the game you want to transfer information to. Click on it and make sure the cloud data is aligned with the last time you read it. You should see a separate check mark next to the title, along with a cloud data timestamp. If the dates have lined up since the last time you played them, you should be good to go. However, it doesn't hurt to run it to check on your progress and make sure everything makes sense.
When you're ready, grab your Nintendo Lite and turn it on by signing into your Nintendo Account. You want to make it your primary Nintendo console, so that you can play all the games you want to use from that console when it's connected to the internet. Download the game (s) you synced cloud data with on your original Switch and wait for them to load on Nintendo Lite.
Once you've downloaded the game, the cloud information for your original Switch console should be on your Switch Lite. You want to go through the same process of double checking the cloud data on your Switch Lite from your original Switch. The separate check mark and timestamp should be next to it, which is the original switch information. If everything is there, you can go.
Cloudless backup games
If the game you want to play does not sync with Nintendo's Cloud Software, you will need to perform a few additional steps to transfer these save files to your Nintendo Lite.
So on your original switch containing all of your backup data, you want to go to “System Settings”> “Data Management”> “Transfer Backup Data”. You should see a black and white screen with two options. You want to click on the first option, "Send backup data to another console," for your original switch. When you click on it, a list of the games saved on the Switch will appear and you have to choose the game you want to send. This means that you are going to erase all saved data from this console and transfer it to your new Switch Lite.
Enter your Switch Lite and scroll down to the same list of settings as for the original Switch. However, this time you want to click on the “Receive Backup Data” button, located to the right of the black and white screen. The information from your original Switch will sync with your Switch Lite after a few moments.
This is all the information you need to transfer your save data from your original Nintendo Switch to your new Nintendo Switch Lite. Enjoy the games you'll be playing on your trip and have fun playing your favorite Nintendo titles wherever you are.
