Animal Crossing New Horizon has finally added a cloud saving feature on their latest update that allows you to keep your island data in case the game save gets corrupted. This is a function that most of the players are requesting to be available since the game was launched.

Players will now have the option to save their island online and download them to another Nintendo switch in case they decide to get a new one, or when previously their old Switch gets damaged or stolen.

How to save Animal Crossing island data to the cloud

In order to save Animal Crossing island data, you need to set up a Nintendo Switch Online account. You must ensure that the Nintendo Switch is using a stable internet connection and with the latest software version to prevent problems in activating the island backup feature.

Launch the Animal Animal Crossing New Horizons game.
When on the game title screen (do not press A button yet), press the Minus (-) sign button to open the Settings menu.
Interact with Tom Nook until you see the “Island backup” option.
Select the “Island backup” option and then “Enable island backup” option next.

Once the steps above are done and the island data is enabled, the information of when the last backup was made will appear on the title screen.

How to download your Animal Crossing island data to your Nintendo Switch?

Save island data backups can be downloaded in two ways. Take note that an active Nintendo Switch Online account is still required for these steps.

Download island data from game menu.

Download save data backups from the software menu of the game. Here’s how to do that:

Go the Nintendo Home screen.
Highlight the Animal Crossing New Horizons game tile.
Press the minus (-) button on the controller.
Select Save Data Cloud. Choose the appropriate user and select the backup file to be downloaded.

Download island data via System Settings.

You can also download a backup from within the System Settings. Here’s how:

Go the Nintendo Home screen.
Select System Settings.
Select Data Management.
Select Save Data Cloud.
Select the appropriate user and download the backup file.
Select Download Save Data to complete the process.

If for some reason you are unsuccessful or encountered an error in either of these two methods, then you can contact Nintendo support to download the island backup.

How to disable Animal Crossing island backup feature?

If you want not to use Island backup feature on Animal Crossing, follow these steps:

Open Animal Crossing: New Horizons and select the user with the Nintendo Account that originally enabled island backup.
From the title screen, press the Minus (–) Button to access the Settings menu.
Select Island backup.
Select Disable island backup.
Select Yes, disable backup to confirm.

If you are getting a message that island backup cannot be turned off, it can be caused by one of two things: either your Nintendo Switch is not currently connected to the internet or you are not using the same Nintendo Account that was used to enable island backup.

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