[Guide] How to move out villagers fast and with no risk of losing your keeps

I need to put a stop to all these accidents where people lose their dreamies due to wrong/bad TT methods so I just wrote this guide with my experience of the villager move-out process. I think this particular sub-forum needs this guide [too], since it's here where most villager trades happen and some people who use this sub probably don't use the main AC sub. People who are new to villager trade and find their way here need to know this.

First, two things you should know:
1. The only time the game should care about moving forward multiple days is when a villager already thinks of moving out.
2. Counting from the first day that a villager starts thinking of moving out, it will take them five days to be in boxes.


THE GUIDE:

-1) You MUST have the beautiful town ordinance before doing ANY of this or you will end up with loads of weed and you will lose your flowers!

0) TT one day at a time, checking everyone and making sure you can't miss a mover until you can stop someone from moving out. Stop someone.

1) After that, TT to the next day, save and quit (1). TT to the next day. Save and quit (2). TT to the next day. Save and quit (3). TT to the next day (3,5).
2) Now, find your mover. Someone is almost guaranteed to want to move. Find the mover and let them move or tell them not to depending on who they are. If they are not supposed to move, repeat steps 1) & 2).
3) If you are absolutely sure that nobody wants to move (talk to several villagers until they get bored in case they mention someone moving and walk in front of everyone you want to keep for a sec to see if they ping you for moving), TT to the next day and search very carefully, again. Do this until you find your mover and do steps 1) & 2) again if you stop them.
!!) Be very careful while TT:ing so that you don't TT more than you are supposed to. If you TT two more days that way than you should, someone might end up in boxes!

Click to expand...

Why does this work?
The only time the game should care about moving forward multiple days is when a villager already thinks of moving out. If you TT multiple days at such a time you are just making it possible to lose that villager by missing their moveout day if you are careless and don't catch them in time. You might even skip their boxes day and void them.
Going one day forward at a time is the best bet, it completely removes the chance of accidental voidings and keeps your villagers further away from surprise boxes. Surprise boxes won't happen if you TT the amount I gave, since it always takes a villager 5 days to be in boxes from when they start considering movig, not counting the day they start considering it.

Every day when you load the game and you have at least 9 villagers there is a chance that someone will want to move at random. There is no rule that "X days after someone trying to move someone will start thinking of moving". It is random: Someone might start thinking of it right after the day you stopped someone. Or two days after it. Or three days after it. Or four days after it, ... I don't know the chances (like, I don't know if there is for example a 30% chance every day that someone will start thinking of it).

Good luck!

FAQ

How do I find the mover? Or make sure nobody is moving?

Click to expand...

Walk in front of every single villager while they are outside and see if they ping. Sometimes another villager will ping you and say other stuff. In that case you won't get a ping even from the mover for a while and you should do other stuff instead of continuing to check for pings.
ALSO, talk to at least three of your villagers until they get bored (and don't talk to you anymore). If none of them mention that someone is moving, it is highly probable that nobody is moving. However, it is not impossible (it would just be extremely unlucky).

Click to expand...

EXTRA important information:
If you have invited someone to move from your campsite OR adopted someone from another player, DO NOT adopt that same animal / make that same animal move in from your campsite. It will corrupt your game. For more information, see this thread.

yup after trial and error this is the way i've been doing TTIng too and to date since i started this method i havent lost any villagers i didnt want to lose!! its the best way to TT and also its great because you can check your campsite every day as well

This is what I've been doing too, but hopefully this will be very helpful for those who don't already do it c: By the way I think this goes in the general new leaf discussion area but idk haha

I also usually try to talk to the one I want to move out first. Say I want to move out my Mira, I run to her area in my town and hope that she pings me. I avoid all other villagers unless it's her. If it isn't, I talk to all my other villagers at least 2-3 times making sure none of them move out. If the villager I want to move out happens to be in a store or inside their house, I'll time travel a few hours later and the villager will be outside around her house again. (Hoping they will ping)

This is some really good advice for people who haven't thought of this on their own already. Personally, I've started doing this since I got 10 villagers that I don't want to lose(mind you some I'll allow to leave they they want to leave[Bunnie, Poppy, Francine; to name a few]. But this really does allow you to stop those you don't want to lose from moving.

Though I don't spam talk to my villagers, I just find everyone and talk to them once. I always find that, if somebody is thinking about moving; somebody will mention it the first time you speak to them.

edit: Of course, no sooner do I comment on this guide; then Carmen decides she wants to move.

the best way to get a villager to ping if you know they're moving out is to talk to them once to make sure they dont have the 'you haven't talked to me in over a week!' dialogue, and then saving, quitting, and starting your game again without TTing at all!

ofc, if they're in a store or house then TTing a few hours will do the trick.

Isabella said:

By the way I think this goes in the general new leaf discussion area but idk haha

Click to expand...

It says right at the beginning why I posted this here. P: This sub desperately needs this guide.

since i started doing this method,no one i like had moved

I didn't know this actually was a "method". I leared it by trial (and no error since I'm careful) after reading those horrible, horrible other guides lol.

I kind of assumed that the reader would know the very basics of TT'ing out someone so I didn't go too much into detail about how to find out your mover once (s)he exists or should exist. Do you think I should explain it more in detail? (Like the TT a few hours to find those in shops/museum stuff.)

This helps, thanks!

Glad it does!

Also, personally I'm not sure if fully ignoring villagers really makes them more likely to move. I didn't notice any difference. What I DO know, however, is that villagers with maximal friendship (those who randomly visit you when you are at home) ARE more likely to be thinking of moving. (You will also [usually] get their picture in the mail when they move. c: )

bump

Imo this should be stickied so I reported it.

Sucks it got moved.

Yeah, imo this should be a sticky in the villager trading plaza...

i believe if you just had a villager move in, no one will ask for 3 days to move out
but after that its random
(i think also if someone asks to move and you say no, its another 3 days until someone thinks about moving)
im probably wrong about the 2nd one tho

tsundere said:

i believe if you just had a villager move in, no one will ask for 3 days to move out
but after that its random
(i think also if someone asks to move and you say no, its another 3 days until someone thinks about moving)
im probably wrong about the 2nd one tho

Click to expand...

As far as I know I have had a villager move in [with "move in" I mean fully settled like any villager] and the same day a moving event started. New villagers moving in do, however, create a two day break in the "moving status" and nobody new will want to move when someone has their plot set up and is in beginning boxes.

The "second thing" is random.

Okay, so I already kind of goofed. My town had 10 villagers. Moose was moving out of my town on the 29th, and I really wanted to hustle him out quicker so that I could let Felicity move in. I time travelled to the 30th (without doing it 1 day at a time), invited Felicity in.....and now what do I do? I want to go back to the present date, but I'm afraid of travelling backwards in time might make someone want to move. Since it's 1 am right now, it's especially tricky because not everyone is going to be awake so they can "ping" me and tell me they're considering moving. So should I:

A) Change the time to one where everybody is going to be awake, maybe 3 pm, go back 1 day at a time, and make sure to pass by everybody?

B) Go the full 5 days back to the present, hope nobody moved, and talk to everybody?

Judging by the OP I should do A, but I am tired and stupid.

Oooh. TT:ing backwards only counts as one day, even though you TT back more than one day. (For trees and flowers it actually counts as 0 days.) You can TT back as much as you like. I forgot to mention that since it seemed so obvious to me after doing it so much, sorry!

Hmm, I just had Shari announce that she wants to move, while Static is in boxes (moving in).

Summ3rain said:

Hmm, I just had Shari announce that she wants to move, while Static is in boxes (moving in).

Click to expand...

Mhm. That's... not unusual or anything.