Short answer: open your gift bag first, send a gift back to anyone without one pending, then spin one PokéStop (or let your Buddy restock) so you have gifts ready tomorrow. That's the whole loop - each step takes seconds, and together they earn the one friendship point per friend per day the game actually rewards. Trading, raiding or battling are worth doing when you can, but gifting is the only interaction that costs no setup and no distance.
Trainer school
The 2-minute daily routine for leveling up Pokémon GO friendships
A friendship level doesn't need a long session - it needs the same short action, every day, for as many friends as you can realistically reach. Here's a routine built around the game's own caps rather than against them.
The routine, in order
- Open gifts first. You can open up to 30 gifts a day, and friendship points only count once per friend per day - opening a gift from someone you haven't interacted with yet today is the cheapest point you'll earn. If you're close to running out of opens before your bag is empty, prioritize friends nearing a level-up threshold (see the table in our friendship levels & XP guide) - those are the ones about to pay out a big XP chunk.
- Send a gift to everyone who doesn't already have one from you. You can hold 20 gifts and send one per friend per day, but only once they've opened your previous one - the game blocks a second send automatically, so there's no bookkeeping to do. See the full gifts & postcards limits if you want the exact numbers.
- Restock for tomorrow. Spin one PokéStop, or just keep playing normally - your Buddy Pokémon auto-fetches up to 5 gifts from nearby stops when your bag runs low, up to three times a day, so most players never need to spin specifically for gifts.
- If you have a minute more, trade or raid with one friend. Either counts as that day's interaction too, and raiding together is the only way to trigger a Lucky Friends roll - see how to get Lucky Friends fast - but neither is required for the routine to work.
That's the entire loop. None of it requires standing near a friend, and gifting works at any distance, which is why it anchors the routine rather than trading or raiding.
Why gifting carries the routine
Trading needs proximity (or a rare, capped remote trade) and raiding needs an active lobby, but gifting works the moment you open the app, with any friend, anywhere. It's also the only interaction where either side moves the bar: since the December 2025 update, sending or opening counts, so a friend you gift daily keeps leveling up even on days they never open the app. That makes gifting the one action worth never skipping - everything else is a bonus on top.
Scaling the routine for a bigger list
The 30-gift opening cap is the real ceiling, not your friend count - see our breakdown of how many friends you actually need. If you have more friends than you can open gifts for, the routine still works, it just triages:
- Open from friends nearest a level-up threshold first.
- Friends who never send back are costing you an open slot for nothing - if your list is full of them, pruning the cap frees room for people who actually gift.
- A list of 20-40 reliably active gifters clears the daily caps every day with room to spare; a much larger list mostly adds friends you'll never get around to opening.
FAQ
Does the order of the routine actually matter? Only loosely - open before you run out of daily opens, and send before you forget. Doing both once a day is what matters, not the exact sequence.
What if I can only do this every few days instead of daily? You still bank a point for each day you do interact, but a friend's level-up timeline is measured in consecutive-ish days of activity (either side), so skipping days just stretches the timeline rather than resetting it - see the point math in our friendship levels guide.
Do I need to trade or raid every day too? No - gifting alone earns the daily friendship point. Trading and raiding are extra interactions worth doing for Stardust savings or a Lucky Friends shot, not requirements for the routine.
Is there a faster way to find new friends for the routine? One tap on the front page gives you a fresh, unused trainer code - add a batch in one sitting and they'll all be ready for day one of the routine together. Browse by country if you also want specific regions for Vivillon postcards.
Can I do this routine for more friends than I can open gifts for? Yes, but the 30-gift opening cap means only the first 30 you open actually bank a point that day from gifting - see how many friends you should have for sizing a list around that cap instead of against it.