After using the Island Transfer Tool, is it safe to proceed with making a new island on your old Switch?

[Rose]

It's a little confusing but I'll break it down to be extra clear.

I got an OLED Switch a while ago and used the Transfer Tool to move my island off my original Switch and onto the OLED. Both Switches are attached to the same Nintendo Online account, and I have a digital copy of the game. My island is successfully on the OLED Switch, and now, booting up ACNH on my old Switch prompts me to pick a map and start a brand new island.

Is it safe to proceed? Has anyone done this? Since it's the same Nintendo account, I have this terrible fear it'll overwrite my save on my OLED Switch somehow if I start an island on the digital copy remaining on my old Switch. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TN4U]

You should be fine. I’ve done this before with no problem. Once you fully transfer your island over to the new Switch and are able to play on it there (and create backups with Online if enabled), you are cleared to erase everything on the old Switch and make a new island there if you wish. Nothing will be lost on the new Switch.

If you took screenshots on the old Switch, those will NOT transfer over with the island transfer tool. That can be done through the Switch settings. If you are going to format the old Switch completely with old photos still on it, make sure to save them somewhere before going forward with that. Erasing just the game data on the old Switch will not cause you to also lose screenshots, as those are separate features.

As for using the same account for online, I believe you can only tie one email to an island at a time to use online features, so keep that in mind. I created a family plan with a dummy email account just so that I can play online on both my islands. I could be completely wrong about this, however, as I have the physical edition.

 

[VanitasFan26]

Once you're done transfering the island the island that was on the old switch will be deleted, so yeah it is safe to make a new island so as long that the transfer was a sucess. Tom Nook does mention this when you press minus on the title screen when you ask him about moving the island.