What Does Transferring a Pokémon Mean in 'Pokémon Go'? Everything You Need to Know

Impact

Transferring Pokémon in Pokémon Go is a simple yet effective technique for strengthening your Pokémon Go team.

When your journey is just beginning, you'll be thrilled to meet even the weakest of Pokémon, like Pidgey, Rattata and Zubat. But as your rank increases, you might become frustrated with running into those same monsters, especially when roaming through previously uncharted territory. Don't be! Those common creatures will help evolve your squad, thus expanding your Pokédex and heightening your chances of defeating gym leaders.

In the Game Boy/Nintendo DS games, there is little incentive to capture duplicate Pokémon. It's faster to either just knock them out for experience points or flee the scene altogether. However, it's worth

Transferring Pokémon to the professor will net you candies, which in turn can be used to evolve your junior Pokémon into powerful, gym-ready monsters. But if you're catching identical species, how do you decide which to transfer? Simple: Size up their Combat Power.

Always transfer whichever Pokémon has the lower CP. A low CP means they have little battling potential, which won't do much good when it comes to challenging and defending gyms.

To transfer a Pokémon: select them in the Pokémon menu, press the menu button in the bottom-right corner, select "transfer" and follow the prompt. Keep in mind that transfers are permanent, so double-check that the right Pokémon was selected before pressing "yes." To avoid any mistakes, "favorite" any Pokémon you want to keep by your side (by pressing the star in the upper-right corner).

Once completed, the Pokémon will be exchanged for one breed-specific candy, which can be stockpiled until enough have been accumulated to evolve another Pokémon of that breed. For example: Pidgey needs 12 candies, Rattata requires 25 and Zubat takes 50.

That's all there is to it. Transfer all of your dispensable Pokémon and you'll be that much closer to catching 'em all. Oh, and for what it's worth, no one has any idea what Professor Willow does with all those transferred Pokémon. Frankly, do we even want to know?