Tutorial  Updated

A Beginners Guide to Cloning Pokemon [X/Y/OR/AS Only]

Hey there! You might be familiar with the term ‘Cloning’, and you might wanna know how to do it. So I made this guide, to tell you everything about cloning your Pokémon.

Note that this guide is applicable for only the 6th Gen games: Pokémon X, Pokémon Y, Pokémon Omega Ruby, and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire.

What is Cloning?

Cloning is creating multiple copies (or ‘clones’) of any of your Pokémon so that you could have one for yourself, and the others for trade/battles/breeding etc.

The cloned Pokémon would be same as the original one: If it was legitimate, its clone will be legitimate too. Although through Nintendo’s point of view this is illicit, many people clone Pokémon for helping others get the same Pokémon by giving them away, etc.

You can either clone by yourselves, or give your Pokémon to a person who can clone them for you.

If you wish to clone by yourselves, continue reading this guide. You can also continue with this guide for knowledge of cloning.

How do I clone my Pokémon?

Cloning can be achieved with many methods. So of them requires you to have specific games or hardware like Datel Powersaves, but some are completely free. The methods are listed below:

1. Cloning with Datel Powersaves [Requires Datel Powersaves, and your Game to be a Cartridge one]

2. Cloning with PKHeX [Requires a Computer/Laptop, and Homebrew Access(or Custom Firmware)]

3. Cloning with PCHex++ (Easiest one) [Requires Homebrew access or Custom Firware]

4. Cloning with two consoles (Damn Difficult) [Requires two games and consoles]

5. Cloning with QR Codes [Requires Custom Firmware]

I will describe all of these methods, but the ones recommended are Powersaves and PCHex++.

1. Cloning with Datel Powersaves

In this method, you extract your save file from your Game Card and edit it using the Powersaves software. This requires you to have Datel Powersaves itself, and your game must not be an eShop version. If you have an eShop copy of the game, check another method to clone.

Steps:



If you have the clones in your box(es), congrats, you cloned your Pokémon successfully. You might still wanna check the other methods out though.


2. Cloning with PKHeX

This method requires you to have Homebrew Access. If don’t know what is homebrew, check out https://smealum.github.io/3ds to know what it is, and how to get it. Once you get homebrew access, proceed with the guide. NOTE: People with the game Freakyforms deluxe shall look here to install homebrew.

Downloads:

1. Latest version of PKHeX from here.

2. The latest version of svdt from here. NOTE: SaveDataFiler can also be used to extract saves; but that's for people with a Custom Firmware.

After you get these, take out your console’s SD Card. Put it into your Computer/Laptop. In the root of your SD Card, there must be a folder named ‘3ds’ without the quotes (and NOT Nintendo 3DS). Open that folder. Make a folder called ‘svdt’ without the quotes. Paste svdt.3dsx, svdt.smdh, svdt.xml from the svdt-master.zip (which you downloaded) into that folder. Navigate back to the root of your SD Card. Create a Folder called ‘Pokémon Save’ without the quotes. Now eject your SD Card, and put it back into your 3DS. Your SD Card is now ready.

Steps to cloning:

1. Get into the Homebrew Launcher using the entrypoint of your choice.

2. Navigate to svdt, and press the A button to open it. Select the your Pokémon game as the target game.

3. You will see a red bottom screen for some time, and finally svdt will open. The bottom screen will have a prompt asking whether auto secure value rewriting should be turned on. This is important, and press A to turn it on.

4. The left side of your top screen will show your game’s save, and the right side will show your SD Card. Navigate through your SD Card, and open the ‘Pokémon Save’ folder (which you had created earlier) using the A button.

5. The folder must have no contents if you are using svdt for the first time. Press D-Pad left to go into your game save. Press Y to copy the save to the folder.

6. Press D-Pad right once, and then press the power button for 1 second. Wait for the blue power light of your 3DS to go off.

7. Take out your SD Card, and put it into your computer. Navigate to the ‘Pokémon Save’ folder. It should have a file called as ‘main’ (without any extension or the quotes). Copy that file to the desktop of your computer.

8. Open PKHeX. Drag and Drop the ‘main’ file from your desktop onto the PKHeX window. You should now see your box, and all the Pokémon you have in them.

9. Right click the Pokémon you want to clone, and select ‘View’. The information of your Pokémon should now be displayed on the left side of the window. Right click on an empty slot in any of your boxes, and click ‘Set’. You Pokémon will now be cloned. Do this as many times as the number of clones you want.

10. After you are done, press the Alt key, and go to the file dropdown. Click on Export SAV->Export main. Save it onto the ‘Pokémon Save’ folder of you SD Card, and overwrite it if one exists already.

11. Put your SD Card Back into your 3DS, and get into the Homebrew Launcher through the entrypoint of your choice.

12. Open svdt. Select your Pokémon game as the target game. DO NOT select any other Pokémon game if you have one.

13. After svdt loads, Press A to enable secure value rewriting. Navigate to the ‘Pokémon Save’ folder, and press A to open it.

14. The cursor must be in the right side of the screen, highlighting the main file in the Pokémon Save folder.

15. Press Y to export the save to the game. Press Select to overwrite the existing save.

16. Now, Hold the Following button combination: L+R+D-Pad Down+B. You must exit back to the Homebrew Launcher.

17. Press Start, and then X. Wait until you see the home menu. Open your Pokémon game, and navigate to the box where you cloned the Pokémon. If you see the clones, congratz, you cloned successfully.

This method is easy to do, but requires a Computer whenever you want to clone. You can use this method, or check the one which utilizes PCHex++ instead.


3. Cloning with PCHex++

This method is the easiest one, and you can clone on your 3DS itself. You will require a computer for the first time, but not after that. You will require homebrew access every time you wanna clone. You can also use the CIA version of PCHex++ if you have Custom Firmware. NOTE: People with the game Freakyforms deluxe shall look here to install homebrew.

Downloads:

1. The latest version of PCHex++ from here.

Open the PCHex++ zip, and copy the PCHex++ folder from it to the ‘3ds’ folder of your SD Card. That is the setup. You SD Card is now ready. Put it back into your console.
NOTE: If you have a Custom Firmware, just install a CIA of PCHex++ directly to your Home Menu using the CIA manager of your choice.

Steps:

1. On your 3DS, get into Homebrew Launcher through the entrypoint of your choice.

2. Navigate to PCHex++, and open it using the A button. Select the target title as your Pokémon game.

3. After a moment, it will load. You will see some sprites of the Pokémon you have. Use L and R to navigate through the boxes, and get to the box of the Pokémon which you want to clone. Scroll down or up using the corresponding D-Pad buttons if you can’t see your Pokémon.

4. After you Pokémon is highlighted, press X to clone. Highlight the Location of the clone, and press A. The Pokémon will be cloned in that location.

5. Repeat step 4 as many times as the number of clones you need.

6. After you’re done, press Start to save and exit.

7. Open your game. Your Pokémon must now be cloned.

NOTE: You can also clone whole boxes using this method.
Protip: with the new version of PCHex++ you can clone an entire box in one shot by pressing SELECT in the main screen to activate the MULTIPLE CLONE MODE.

Select, then X to choose the box you want to clone then A into the destination box.

[EDIT]Be careful because obviously the destination box will be overwritten

If you can see the clone(s) of your Pokémon, congrats, as you have know learned the best method of cloning! Feel free to check out the other methods too.


4. Cloning with two consoles (not recommended)

If you don’t have any of Powersaves, Homebrew access or Custom Firmware, you can use this methd to clone. This one fails 90% of the time, and requires perfect timing to succeed.

You need to have two Pokémon Games and two 3DS’ for this method. Have a timer with you too, so that you know when to stop.

Steps:

1. Open the games on both of your consoles. The consoles must have each others friend codes registered.

2. Start a local wireless trade between the two.

3. From one console, trade the Pokémon you want to clone to the other console. from the other console, accept the trade.

4. Wait for the trade animation to go by.

5. This is Important. As soon as you see the blue ‘Communicating…’ screen, start the timer.

6. Power Off the console from which the Target Pokémon was traded after an exact 4.5 seconds. You can press the Power Button as soon as you see 4.1 seconds on the timer.

7. Power off both the consoles. Turn on both, and check whether the Pokémon was cloned. If not, repeat the steps.

8. Your Pokémon will eventually get cloned once you get the perfect timing.

If you successfully cloned using this method, congratulations because this is the most difficult method of cloning. You can still check out other methods of cloning in this guide.


5. Cloning with two QR Codes/Spider3DSTools

This is the fastest method to clone, but using this method requires a Custom Firmware installed on your 3DS. This method was usable a long time ago without a CFW, but after that, this was patched in the recent 3DS System Versions.

This method will not work on a New 3DS.

Downloads:

1. Browser from system version 9.2.0-20. I won’t link it; you can find it on that ISO site or that Chaos site. If you recently downgraded your 3DS, and still have the downgrade pack with you, you can use the browser CIA from that.

2. CIA Manager like BigBlueMenu/DevMenu. You might already have that if you have a CFW.

Put the browser CIA in a Folder called ‘Vuln Browser’ (without the quotes) on the root of your SD Card. Your SD Card is now ready. Put it back into your 3DS.

Steps:

1. Power On your 3DS, and get into the CFW of your choice. Open the CIA Manager of your choice.

2. Go to SD Import. Navigate to and open the Folder called ‘Vuln Browser’ on the root of your SD Card.

3. Install the CIA which is inside it onto your NAND.

4. After the install completes, exit the CIA Manager. Open your browser, and make sure it works.

5. Open your Pokémon Game. Get to a Pokémon Center. In your PC, Move all the Pokémon in Box 1 to other boxes. Make sure it is empty.

6. Put the Pokémon you want to clone in Slot 1 of Box 1. Exit the PC, and make the character stand in front of it.

7. Press the HOME button. DO NOT close the game. Open the browser. Go to Settings, and Clear the History and Cookies.

8. Go to http://lunarcookies.github.io/rows on your browser. Let it load. It will crash, and The error message will tell you to save and restart.

9. Go back to your Pokémon game. Open box one. Your Pokémon will now be cloned.

10. Save your game to write the changes to your save file.

11. Repeat this as many times as you want. Make sure you clear your History and Cookies before going to the links.

You can also use http://lunarcookies.github.io/fill instead of the earlier link. This one will fill the whole of your Box 1 with the Pokémon on Slot 1.

If you cloned using this method successfully, congrats! But you still might wanna install PCHex++ CIA to clone.


Are there any risks in this?

When you edit your save file using any of the methods, there is always a risk of corrupting it. Therefore, to avoid losing your save file, you must always backup your save file using utilities like svdt (or SaveDataFiler if you have a CFW). Always, before, editing your save, save the backup of your file on multiple locations of your computer, and/or on a cloud service.

This has no risk of bricking your 3DS (rendering it unusable), however. I don’t know anybody who reported a brick after editing a save file.


Can I edit my Pokémon using any of the given utilities?

Yes, you can. But, I am against PokeEditing or PokeGenning, because the real fun is in using legitimate Pokémon. There will be people who will edit Pokémon, but what can we do? Once you spot someone like that, do not trade/battle with him/her.

I made this guide for cloning, but this has exposed y’all to basic 3DS Hacking. If you have Homebrew Access, you can downgrade your 3DS, which would give you the ability to install a Custom Firmware, through which you can install pirated games, have unsigned homebrew software directly onto your home menu, etc. If you wanna downgrade, check my guide to downgrading.

You can use this after getting Homebrew Access/CFW:
PHBank
 
Last edited by Salamencizer,

driverdis

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You should switch from svdt to JK Save Manager for the guide.

EDIT, you should also mention for Spiderhax that even for CFW, it was patched past 9.5 and that only the older non updated versions and the first update of Pokemon work as the latest updates patched ram injection and dumping even on 9.0-9.5
 
Last edited by driverdis,
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Slashcash

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Protip: with the new version of PCHex++ you can clone an entire box in one shot by pressing SELECT in the main screen to activate the MULTIPLE CLONE MODE.

Select, then X to choose the box you want to clone then A into the destination box.

[EDIT]Be careful because obviously the destination box will be overwritten
 
Last edited by Slashcash,

Returnofganon

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Or my personal favourite way of cloning.

Backup save with savefiler, copy the pokemon to my pokebank and then restore save file.

All done
That should be added to the guide, Ive been wanting to try that method
 

yusuo

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or use PhBank and JK save manager, it also good and free
I dont mind paying £4.49 a year to guarantee pokemon sun and moon compatibility as well as compatibility with pokemon red. Seeing as i've already saved roughly £300 on downloaded games so far

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Could that not cause like, corrupted file or anything?
Nah as long as you remove secure value first, never had an issue
 

dradonhunter11

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I dont mind paying £4.49 a year to guarantee pokemon sun and moon compatibility as well as compatibility with pokemon red. Seeing as i've already saved roughly £300 on downloaded games so far

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Nah as long as you remove secure value first, never had an issue
Well, you are right, I have both so I mostly don't care. Having both allow 200 box to
 

driverdis

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I have both, I can have up to 100 boxes full of Pokemon with items stripped out by the TSA Nintendo and up to 100 boxes of Pokemon that can hold items and is free to use.
 

proflayton123

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I dont mind paying £4.49 a year to guarantee pokemon sun and moon compatibility as well as compatibility with pokemon red. Seeing as i've already saved roughly £300 on downloaded games so far

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Nah as long as you remove secure value first, never had an issue

deleting it you mean? :v

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Im guessing so lol.
 

Salamencizer

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You should switch from svdt to JK Save Manager for the guide.
EDIT, you should also mention for Spiderhax that even for CFW, it was patched past 9.5 and that only the older non updated versions and the first update of Pokemon work as the latest updates patched ram injection and dumping even on 9.0-9.5
I personally tested it on Ver. 10.7 with a downgraded browser. Pokémon Alpha Sapphire Version 1.4. Works like a charm.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Or my personal favourite way of cloning.

Backup save with savefiler, copy the pokemon to my pokebank and then restore save file.

All done
Nice one, but it's too obvious
 

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