Pokémon GO Postcards: How to Get Scatterbug & Vivillon Patterns

A Pokémon GO Postcard may look like a simple souvenir attached to a Gift, but it has become part of a much larger collection system. Postcards can preserve memorable PokéStops, help you track places visited by friends, contribute toward Scatterbug encounters, and ultimately help you collect different Vivillon patterns.

The confusing part is that saving a Postcard, pinning a Gift, earning Vivillon progress, and keeping cards in your Postcard Book are related but not exactly the same thing.

This Pokémon GO Postcards guide explains how the system works, how to pin Postcards, how many you need for Scatterbug, how regional Postcards affect Vivillon, what to delete when your book gets full, and what to try when Postcards are not registering.

What Are Postcards in Pokémon GO?

A Pokémon GO Postcard is associated with a Gift collected from a particular PokéStop or Gym. When you receive a Gift from a friend, you can view the Postcard attached to it before opening the Gift.

The card acts as a small souvenir of that location. Depending on the card and your privacy settings, it can display information such as the PokéStop image, location, sender, and when it was received.

You can save cards you like in your Postcard Book, which can be accessed through your Trainer Profile or Item Bag.

Gift vs. Postcard vs. Postcard Book

These three terms are easy to mix up.

A Gift is the item you send to a friend. It can contain items such as Poké Balls, Stardust, Stickers, and Eggs when opened.

A Postcard represents the PokéStop or location attached to that Gift.

The Postcard Book is where Postcards you choose to save are stored.

That distinction becomes important once you start working toward Vivillon because the valuable action is usually pinning an eligible Postcard, not permanently keeping every card you receive.

What's the Point of Pokémon GO Postcards?

Postcards currently have several useful purposes.

The simplest is collecting. You might save cards from landmarks, vacation destinations, unusual PokéStops, or places sent by friends around the world.

More importantly, Postcards are tied to the Vivillon Collector Medal. Pinning Postcards from qualifying geographic regions can eventually trigger Scatterbug encounters corresponding to those regions.

Postcards can also interact with Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet through the Nintendo Switch connection feature, making them useful outside Pokémon GO as well.

For most Trainers, however, Scatterbug and Vivillon are the main gameplay reason to care about Pokémon GO Postcards.

How to Pin a Postcard in Pokémon GO

Pinning a Postcard only takes a few seconds, but you should normally do it before opening the Gift.

How to Pin a Friend's Pokémon GO Postcard

Open Pokémon GO and go to your Trainer Profile. Open your Friends list and select the friend whose Gift you want to view.

Open the Gift screen without opening the Gift itself. Tap the pin icon beside the Postcard.

The Postcard is then saved to your Postcard Book and, when eligible, can contribute toward your Vivillon Collector Medal.

You can open the Gift normally afterward.

How to Pin Your Own Pokémon GO Postcards

You can also save Postcards attached to Gifts that you collected yourself.

Open your Item Bag and find your Gifts. Select a Gift and pin its Postcard before sending it to another Trainer.

Your own regional Postcards can contribute toward Vivillon progress, but Pokémon GO applies a daily limit to progress obtained from your own collected Gifts.

Current in-game support information limits this progress to two of your own Gift Postcards per day. Older Pokémon GO guides may still mention three because the original Vivillon system used a different rule.

How to Pin 3 Postcards in Pokémon GO

If a research task asks you to Pin 3 Postcards, you generally do not need three special types of cards.

Open Gifts, tap the Postcard pin icon, and repeat until you have pinned the required number of eligible cards.

If your goal is Scatterbug rather than merely completing research, the Postcards' geographic origins matter because Vivillon progress is separated by habitat.

Pokémon GO Postcards, Scatterbug, and Vivillon Explained

Vivillon is where Pokémon GO Postcards become much more interesting.

Scatterbug can evolve into Spewpa and then Vivillon. The Vivillon pattern ultimately associated with your Scatterbug depends on the geographic habitat represented by the Postcards that advanced its medal.

Instead of catching every Vivillon pattern directly in the wild, you build progress by pinning Postcards from different parts of the world.

How Pokémon GO Postcards Unlock Scatterbug

Open your Trainer Profile and locate the Vivillon Collector Medal.

Each Vivillon habitat has its own progress counter. When you pin an eligible Postcard, the game checks the geographic region associated with that Postcard and adds progress to the corresponding habitat.

Once you meet the required threshold, a Scatterbug encounter becomes available for that habitat.

The Scatterbug you encounter is associated with that Vivillon region. After evolving it into Vivillon, it can display the pattern for that habitat.

How Many Postcards Do You Need for Scatterbug?

The standard progression is:

These counters apply to the relevant Vivillon habitat rather than all Postcards combined.

For example, pinning two Ocean Postcards and one Modern Postcard does not give you three points toward one Ocean Scatterbug encounter. Each habitat tracks its own progress.

This is why randomly pinning every Gift works much less efficiently than paying attention to which Vivillon patterns you still need.

How to Check Vivillon Collector Medal Progress

Open your Trainer Profile and find the Vivillon Collector Medal.

Select it to view your regional progress. This is also where you should look if you believe Pokémon GO Postcards are not registering.

Sometimes a Scatterbug encounter is already waiting to be claimed. If so, complete that encounter before assuming your Postcard progress has disappeared.

Scatterbug, Spewpa, and Vivillon Evolution

Once you catch Scatterbug, it evolves into Spewpa using 25 Scatterbug Candy.

Spewpa then requires 100 additional Scatterbug Candy to evolve into Vivillon.

Because collecting all Vivillon patterns requires many evolutions, Candy can become a bigger long-term bottleneck than obtaining the first Scatterbug from each region.

Pinning more regional Postcards and catching subsequent Scatterbug encounters therefore remains useful even after you have registered a particular pattern.

Pokémon GO Vivillon Map and Postcard Regions

Pokémon GO uses 18 Vivillon habitats for the Postcard system:

Each habitat corresponds to particular geographic areas, and Postcards collected within those areas can contribute toward its Vivillon medal.

How Pokémon GO Vivillon Regions Work

Vivillon regions should not be treated as simple country boundaries.

A large country may contain more than one pattern, and neighboring areas can sometimes belong to different Vivillon habitats. That makes lists such as “Country A always gives Pattern B” unreliable for border regions.

The safest way to plan your collection is to open the Vivillon Collector Medal and use Pokémon GO's habitat map as your primary reference.

A general regional table can help you narrow down where a pattern is likely to appear, but the in-game map is more useful when choosing a specific area.

Why Some Vivillon Patterns Are Harder to Get

Patterns become difficult mainly because their geographic coverage and active player populations differ.

A Trainer living in an area associated with Modern, Continental, or another broadly accessible pattern may receive those Postcards constantly. Meanwhile, patterns tied to narrower geographic areas can require intentionally finding friends or Gifts from those locations.

This is why collecting all 18 patterns gradually changes from simply opening Gifts to deliberately building a geographically diverse Friend List.

How to Get Pokémon GO Postcards From Different Regions

If you want every Vivillon pattern, collecting Postcards from only your local area will not be enough.

Fortunately, there are several ways to expand your regional Postcard collection.

1 Add Pokémon GO Friends From Other Regions

This is the most straightforward method.

Add Trainers who regularly play in regions corresponding to Vivillon patterns you still need. When they send Gifts, pin the Postcards before opening them.

Instead of adding dozens of random accounts, first check your Vivillon medal and identify which habitats are missing. Then focus on finding friends from those areas.

2 Collect Postcards While Traveling

If you travel to another city or country, spin PokéStops there and save the Gifts you receive.

Those Gifts retain the location information of their originating PokéStops, so they can become useful Postcards even after you return home.

Before leaving an area with a Vivillon pattern you need, collect enough Gifts to make the trip worthwhile.

3 Use Mateo and Pokémon GO Routes

Mateo can appear around the end of Routes and provides a Gift Exchange feature.

Exchanging Gifts with Mateo can occasionally give you a Gift originating from another Trainer and another location, creating an additional opportunity to obtain non-local Postcards.

It is not as predictable as directly adding a friend from a specific Vivillon region, but it provides another free method for expanding your collection.

4 Explore More Pokémon GO Locations With PoKeep Location Changer

The biggest obstacle when completing a Vivillon collection is geography. Some patterns may correspond to locations you cannot realistically visit, while your Friend List may repeatedly produce the same few regions.

PoKeep Location Changer provides another way to control the GPS location used by supported iPhone and Android devices. Its Pokémon GO-focused features include one-click location changes, a 360-degree GPS joystick, two-point movement, multi-point routes, and jump teleport.

For Postcard collection, the multi-point route feature is particularly relevant because PoKeep can simulate movement through multiple locations such as PokéStops and Gyms instead of requiring you to select every stop manually.

A practical workflow would be:

Step 1 Check your missing Vivillon pattern

Open the Vivillon Collector Medal and note which habitats still need progress.

Step 2 Identify an appropriate geographic area

Use the in-game habitat map or a regional reference to pick a target area for the pattern you need.

Step 3 Explore PokéStops and collect Gifts

Spin PokéStops or Gyms in that area and keep the Gifts you receive.

Step 4 Pin the resulting Postcards

Pin eligible Postcards before opening Gifts when possible.

Step 5 Check your Vivillon medal

Confirm the habitat counter increased after pinning.

PoKeep also includes favorite locations and historical records, which can make frequently revisited Pokémon GO areas easier to organize.

How to View, Organize, and Delete Pokémon GO Postcards

Collecting hundreds of Postcards eventually creates another problem: storage.

Fortunately, you do not need to treat every card as permanent.

Where to Find Your Pokémon GO Postcard Book

You can access the Postcard Book through your Trainer Profile or Item Bag.

Inside, you can review Postcards you have saved and revisit cards from memorable locations.

Sorting options make it easier to find cards based on when you received them or who sent them.

How to Delete Pokémon GO Postcards

Open your Postcard Book and select the Postcard you want to remove.

Open its menu, choose Delete, and confirm the removal.

If you need to free a larger amount of storage, Pokémon GO also supports selecting multiple Postcards for batch deletion.

What Happens When Your Postcard Book Is Full?

The Postcard Book starts with storage for 350 Postcards.

Additional Postcard Pages can be purchased if you want more room. However, buying storage is usually unnecessary if you are saving every ordinary Gift merely because you think Vivillon requires it.

Keep cards that are genuinely interesting or meaningful and clear out routine duplicates periodically.

Do You Need to Keep Postcards After Pinning Them?

The Vivillon system is based on receiving eligible pin progress. Your Postcard Book, meanwhile, acts as a collection of cards you decided to keep.

That means you do not need to turn the Postcard Book into a permanent archive of every Vivillon Gift you have ever used.

If storage becomes a problem, keep memorable Postcards and remove ordinary cards you no longer need.

Repeatedly pinning, unpinning, and re-pinning the exact same Postcard should also not be treated as an unlimited Scatterbug farming method.

How to Send Pokémon GO Postcards to Scarlet and Violet

Postcards are not limited to Pokémon GO.

Pokémon GO can connect with Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet on Nintendo Switch, allowing a saved Postcard to affect gameplay in the Switch game.

How to Send a Pokémon GO Postcard to Nintendo Switch

First pair Pokémon GO with the compatible Scarlet or Violet game on Nintendo Switch.

Then open your Postcard Book in Pokémon GO, select the Postcard you want to use, open its menu, and choose the option to send it to Nintendo Switch.

Follow the instructions on both devices to complete the transfer.

The Postcard is sent as part of the connection process rather than being permanently removed from your Pokémon GO Postcard Book.

How Postcards Affect Vivillon in Scarlet and Violet

The geographic origin of the Pokémon GO Postcard influences which Vivillon pattern can appear in Pokémon Scarlet or Violet after the transfer.

This creates another reason to collect geographically diverse Postcards.

In Pokémon GO, regional Postcards help you encounter regional Scatterbug.

In Scarlet and Violet, the Postcard instead affects which Vivillon pattern appears in that game for a limited period.

Coin Bag, Gimmighoul, and Golden Lures

Connecting Pokémon GO with Scarlet or Violet also interacts with Roaming Form Gimmighoul.

Sending a Postcard can allow you to use the Coin Bag in Pokémon GO, which attracts Roaming Form Gimmighoul for a limited time.

Repeated daily Postcard transfers can also contribute toward obtaining a Golden Lure Module, giving the Switch connection value even if you are not actively collecting every Vivillon pattern.

Pokémon GO Postcards FAQ