Sharing Miis is the most-asked workflow in the Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream community. Players have Miis they've built up over hours of personality tuning, custom-outfit painting and relationship-grinding — and they want to send those Miis to friends, back them up before a save risk, or repopulate a new save without starting from scratch.
This guide covers the official Mii-sharing flow in Living the Dream: QR-code generation, scanning, what data transfers between Miis, and the gotchas that catch most first-time sharers off guard. It works the same on Switch 1 and Switch 2.
Quick answer (TL;DR)
- Open the Mii's profile from the apartment building.
- Choose the share / QR option.
- The game generates a QR code — screenshot it.
- Send the screenshot to your friend via the Switch Online app, microSD, or social media.
- Friend scans the QR code on their Switch via the Tomodachi Life import menu.
- The Mii appears in their game with appearance and personality intact (but no relationships, items, or custom clothes).
Step-by-step QR sharing
The detailed flow with what to look for at each step:
Open the Mii's profile
Tap an apartment building, then the specific Mii you want to share. You'll see their profile screen with portrait, name and stats.
Find the share / QR option
The profile screen has a "Share" or "Send" menu (varies by version). Choose the QR-code option from the submenu.
Generate the QR code
The game compiles the Mii's data into a QR code. This takes a few seconds. The code appears full-screen.
Capture the QR code
Press the screenshot button (left Joy-Con capture button). The image saves to your console's album.
Send the screenshot
Use the Switch Online app, copy to microSD, or social-share to get the image to your friend's phone or device.
Friend imports the Mii
The recipient opens Tomodachi Life on their own Switch, navigates to the Mii import option, and scans the QR code from their phone screen or photo album.
What transfers (and what doesn't)
A common surprise: the shared Mii arrives looking right but feels like a stranger to the recipient's other Miis. That's because the QR code only carries the Mii's identity data, not their relational data. Here's the complete list:
| Data | Transfers? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mii appearance (face, hair, body) | Yes | — |
| Mii name | Yes | — |
| Voice settings | Yes | — |
| Personality traits (all 4 axes) | Yes | — |
| Catchphrases | Partial | Only default ones; custom phrases may not transfer |
| Relationships | No | The Mii arrives single, even if they were married |
| Items owned | No | — |
| Apartment decorations | No | — |
| Food preferences | No | Resets to defaults |
| Custom Palette House clothes worn | No | Mii arrives in default outfit |
Switch vs Switch 2 differences
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream runs on both Switch generations with identical core functionality, including Mii sharing. The differences are convenience-focused, not feature-focused:
- Switch 2 mouse mode makes the QR code scanning more precise when scanning physical printouts — useful if you're trading Miis at a meetup.
- Higher resolution on Switch 2 means QR codes capture more cleanly in screenshots, reducing scan failures when the recipient is using a low-quality phone camera.
- Cross-generation sharing works. A Switch player and a Switch 2 player can swap Miis freely — the QR codes are compatible.
Using QR codes as backups
One of the smartest uses of the QR system has nothing to do with sharing — it's local Mii backup. Before a save risk (Switch system update, save file move, console swap), generate QR codes for every Mii you don't want to lose and save the screenshots to a microSD card or cloud storage.
If your save corrupts or you lose your console, recreating 20+ Miis from scratch is hours of work. Recreating them from QR backups is minutes. The personality, voice and look return instantly; only relationships and items have to be rebuilt.
Custom outfits don't transfer — workaround
The single biggest disappointment in Mii sharing: custom Palette House clothes are tied to the host save, not the Mii itself. When your friend imports your meticulously-designed Mii, they arrive in a default outfit. Your friend has to repaint the custom clothes from scratch.
The workaround: share the Grid Maker recipe alongside the QR code. Export your design as a PNG or share the project URL — your friend can follow the same paint-by-numbers reference and recreate the outfit cell-by-cell in their Palette House. Takes 10–60 minutes depending on complexity.
Community-shared Mii archives
If you want pre-made Miis (anime characters, celebrities, original designs) without making them yourself, the community maintains active sharing channels:
- Reddit r/tomodachi has regular sharing megathreads with QR images.
- Tomodachi Life Discord servers often have dedicated #qr-sharing channels organised by category.
- Tumblr and Twitter / X remain active for indie creators sharing original Mii designs with QR codes attached.
What to read next
Once you've shared a Mii, the next question is usually "what should this Mii look like in the first place?" — see our 100 Tomodachi Life Mii ideas for character, celebrity and original concepts. To match Miis up romantically after sharing, the fall in love guide covers the relationship system. And to recreate custom outfits on the recipient's side, the Grid Maker handles the paint-by-numbers conversion.