I'm not alone in this situation either, as other users on Reddit have also run into the same problem and assumed that their data was lost for good. Here's the problem: if you Google the transfer of data from one Switch to another, Nintendo does warn users that Animal Crossing data cannot be transferred in this way, but nowhere is it mentioned in the transfer process itself. It also says this on the official support page for transferring data, too. Researching what may be the cause, I discovered that Nintendo had said in the past that because Animal Crossing save files are per-Switch and not per-account, the user data profile transfer would not work, and that a special tool needed to be downloaded from the eShop to do it.

Once I launched it, I was greeted by the game's introduction sequence, asking me for my name and other information to set up my in-game profile. After all, most days I'll only play it for a handful of minutes. This is one of the few games I have purchased digitally, as I felt that it made sense for this game to sit forever on my device's storage rather than needing to swap a cart. I downloaded all of my games again, including Animal Crossing, but was surprised to find that my save data wasn't present. I figured that this was fine, and I transferred my data over.

'Once the process is complete, the user information, the associated save data, and the software purchased with the user account that is transferred will no longer be available on the source system.' As Nintendo warns, once the transfer is complete, my old user account would be removed from the older device. I selected to transfer over my profile data, and it then asked me did I intend on using the older Switch, which I did not. When setting up the Nintendo Switch OLED, it asked me if I wanted to transfer over my data from my old Switch. I wanted a better screen, better battery life, and I obviously wanted to take all of my data with me. For context, I recently purchased a Nintendo Switch OLED edition to upgrade over my original launch-year Switch.

Animal crossing nintendo switch rom