Topic: Switch save files/Nintendo account help

So we have a newer switch that I don’t think when we started up we signed in to any account. One game was played on it (TOTK) for several hours, game was almost completed. He then logged into the switch account he uses on the older console, on this new console. So we can’t access the save file for TOTK. When we check the data it appears to still be in the console somewhere. Question is-is there a way to access it while logged into this Nintendo account? If not, is there a way to log out of this account and go back to however he was playing the game before? I’m not sure if I am explaining this well enough. No other games have been played while logged into the Nintendo account so there’s no risk of losing anything else. Just don’t want to lose the TOTK file.

@Dreambml I think I follow you. As far as I know, I think you've overwritten/wiped that switch user profile's TOTK progress(and all game save data on that switch user profile), and it's been replaced with game save data that was linked to that Nintendo account that already had it's own game save data.

I'm not 100% certain on that. I could be wrong here, but that's been my understanding since switch launch. I've seen a person or two on here make the same mistake. As far as I know, I don't think you can recover switch user profile's TOTK game save data. You can try talking to nintendo support to see if there's a solution, but there may not be.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/contact

If you find out that you can recover the game save data that was originally associated with that switch user profile, let me know. I'm curious to hear if it is recoverable.

@Dreambml Yeah, so, the save structure of the switch: The switch user profile IS your game save profile. When you link that switch user to a Nintendo account that has a Nintendo Switch Online(NSO) subscription, the switch will then back up that switch user's save data to the cloud save back up system.

However, if that Nintendo account already has game save data associated with it, like from another Switch, that game save data will replace any progress that was saved to that Switch user before it was linked to a Nintendo account.

I won't claim to know everything, but that's been my understanding. If anyone else knows otherwise, feel free to chime in.

Thank you. So when you first start up a new console, and play the first game, does it make you create an account or log in? I guess that’s where my problem starts. I don’t think either of those things were done but I guess it it’s required, it was. There is only one Nintendo account in the house, so we have no idea what would have been used to start up the new one if that makes sense. So when we recently logged in, we had no idea it wasn’t on that Nintendo account. Which is why I’m thinking the new switch had no account. As for the user info, the users on the original switch only one shows up logging in on the new switch. So I don’t know if anything could be overwritten…TOTK wasn’t played on the old switch, only on the new one. It’s all very confusing. If I could log out of the account on the new switch I may be able to see the user for the file I’d think but I can’t figure that out either. If I figure anything out I will def reply.

You cannot play a game without a switch user profile. Every time you open a game, the second step is selecting the switch user profile (your game save profile) to open the game with. But, no, that switch user profile does not have to be linked to a nintendo account to play a game.