What to Keep in Pokemon GO (and What's Safe to Transfer)
Keep a Pokemon when it's useful to you — for PvP, raids, your Pokedex, or because it's rare and can't be re-caught — and transfer the rest. Most cleanup advice gets this wrong by treating raw IVs as the deciding factor. A 15/15/15 isn't automatically a keeper, and a 0-attack spread can be exactly what you want for Great League. Below is the practical breakdown of what's worth a slot, what's safe to send to the professor, and the special cases everyone runs into.
The one rule: keep by usefulness, not by IV
An IV number only matters in the context of what you'd actually use the Pokemon for. Hundos shine in Master League and raids, where high stats win. But Great and Ultra League reward bulk, so a low-attack, high-defense, high-HP spread can rank far above a hundo of the same species. That's why "transfer everything under 3 stars" is bad advice — it dumps PvP gems and keeps useless dupes. Decide the job first, then judge the IVs against it.
What to keep
Rare and can't-be-recaught
- Shinies — rare, and you can't summon another on demand. The game won't even let you bulk-transfer them, but keep them on purpose, not by accident.
- Lucky Pokemon — half-price stardust to power up and a guaranteed 12/12/12 IV floor. Even a spare lucky is worth holding.
- Legendaries and mythicals — limited availability and expensive to build. Mythicals are often one-per-account, so never transfer those.
- Hundos (100% / 4*) — perfect IVs, genuinely rare, and best where raw stats matter (raids and Master League).
- Costume and event Pokemon — event-exclusive looks you usually can't get back. Keep one of each variant you actually like; you don't need ten of the same party hat.
One search surfaces the whole rare-and-irreplaceable group so you can tag them all at once: shiny,lucky,legendary,mythical,4*.
Battlers worth a slot
- High-rank PvP picks for the leagues you play. For Great/Ultra League that means low-attack, bulky spreads — so search the meta families with
0-1attack&3-4defense&3-4hprather than chasing high numbers. A rank-1 Azumarill is closer to 0/15/15 than to 15/15/15. - Raid attackers — the top damage dealers per type (Machamp, Metagross, Salamence, Garchomp, Mamoswine, and so on). Here high attack wins, so a quality gate like
3-4attack&3-4defenseon those families keeps the ones worth powering up. - Shadow attackers — the +20% Attack means a mediocre-IV shadow of a top raid species often out-damages a non-shadow hundo. Keep good shadow attackers even at unimpressive IVs:
shadow&Machamp,Tyranitar,Metagross. - Legacy / exclusive-move Pokemon — Community Day moves and other limited-time moves can't be re-taught on demand. Don't worry about the mechanics of whether a move is currently teachable; just keep the ones that already have the move. Search
@specialto find anything carrying a special move before you transfer. - Mega / Dynamax-invested Pokemon — if you've spent Mega Energy or Max Particles on it, that investment lives on the specific Pokemon. Protect those:
mega1,mega2,mega3,dynamax.
What's safe to transfer
- Duplicate low-IV commons — the third, fourth, fifth Rattata or Pidgey with bad stats. Keep your best one, send the rest for candy.
- 0–2 star Pokemon you'll never use — outside of a low-attack PvP spread you specifically want, weak IVs on a non-meta species aren't worth a slot.
- Extra evolutions — once you've evolved one for the Pokedex, the leftover pre-evolutions and spare evolved forms are usually candy fodder.
- Leftover event spawns — the pile of generic event mons you caught for stardust or research and don't actually want.
Once your keepers are tagged, this surfaces only the safe-to-go pile — everything valuable hidden, nothing tagged shown: !4*&!shiny&!shadow&!legendary&!mythical&!#&!favorite.
The special cases everyone asks about
How many Mewtwos (or any legendary) should I keep?
Keep your best few — typically a top raid/Master League IV copy plus a shadow if you have one, and any shiny. For the extras: trade a couple to friends if you've got the trade range, since legendary trades roll for a Lucky and a re-rolled IV. Transfer whatever's left for candy. There's no medal or bonus for hoarding ten low-IV Mewtwos.
What about my old 2016 Pokemon?
Old catches make great lucky-trade fodder. Trading a Pokemon caught years ago has a much higher chance of becoming Lucky, which gives that 12+ IV floor and half-price powering up. So before you mass-transfer your oldest mons, set the good-species ones aside as trade bait. Find them with year2016.
Can I trade shadows?
Not as shadows — a Pokemon has to be purified before it can be traded, and purifying removes the shadow bonus. So shadows are either keep-or-transfer, not trade fodder. Keep the ones that are strong raid or PvP attackers; the +20% Attack is the whole point. Transfer the shadow junk you won't build.
The fast workflow: favorite first, transfer last
The safe order is always the same: protect your keepers first, then transfer what's left. Favorite or tag (KEEP_PVP, KEEP_RAID, KEEP_LUCKY, etc.) before you delete anything, because once a keeper is tagged it can't get caught in the transfer pile by mistake.
A quick version: tag the rare-and-irreplaceable group with shiny,lucky,legendary,mythical,4*, tag your league spreads with 0-1attack&3-4defense&3-4hp, then search untagged-only with !# and review what remains before transferring. After a Community Day, narrow the review to just the recent flood with age0-7 instead of scrubbing your whole box.
Not sure which families are meta this season?
The keep-vs-transfer call gets hard when the PvP and raid meta shifts every season. POGO Cleanup builds the exact in-game search strings for your keepers — PvP families by league, raid attackers by type, shadows, legacy moves — so you tag the right Pokemon and transfer the rest with confidence. It's free.
🧹 Try POGO Cleanup — It's FreeFrequently Asked Questions
What should I keep in Pokemon GO?
Keep what's useful or irreplaceable: shinies, lucky Pokemon, legendaries and mythicals, your high-rank PvP spreads and top raid attackers (including shadows for damage), anything with a legacy or Community Day move, and the costume/event Pokemon you actually like. Judge by the job you'd use it for, not by raw IV — a low-attack 3-star can beat a hundo in Great League. Almost everything else is safe to transfer.
What Pokemon are safe to transfer?
After your keepers are tagged: duplicate low-IV commons, 0–2 star Pokemon you won't use, extra evolutions you no longer need for the dex, and leftover event spawns. The reliable method is to tag everything worth keeping first, then search untagged-only with !# so the only thing showing is the safe-to-go pile.
How many legendaries like Mewtwo should I keep?
Keep your best few — a top-IV copy for raids or Master League, a shadow version if you have one, and any shiny. Trade a couple of extras to friends for a shot at a Lucky (legendary trades re-roll the IVs), and transfer the rest for candy. Hoarding ten low-IV copies just costs you storage.
Should I keep shadow Pokemon?
Keep the good attackers. Shadows get +20% Attack, so even a middling-IV shadow of a top raid species often out-damages a non-shadow hundo. They can't be traded unless you purify them (which removes the shadow bonus), so it's a keep-or-transfer decision — hold the strong raid/PvP attackers and let the rest go.