Every serious friend-adder eventually hits the wall: the friend list is full, new requests bounce, and it is pruning time. Here is how the cap works and how to purge like a decent human.
The cap (and why the number looks fuzzy)
Niantic raised the limit repeatedly under community pressure — 200 → 400 → 450 → and with the December 2025 "Forever Friends" update it was announced to grow from 450 to 650 in steps of 50. Official help pages currently state 550, so treat your real ceiling as 550-ish, rising toward 650. Check your own list in-game for the truth on your account.
Related limits worth knowing:
- Incoming friend requests expire after 7 days if you ignore them.
- There are caps on pending requests too — if you see "This Trainer has too many pending Friend Requests", their inbox is full; try again another day.
Who to prune
Sort by the dead weight, in this order:
- Never-gifters — friendship can't progress without daily interactions, so a silent friend occupies a slot for nothing. (Our pool marks trainers who pledge daily gifting when they submit their code.)
- Stuck-at-Good/Great friends who went inactive months ago.
- Best Friends you've finished with — you got the 100,000 XP, they got theirs… did they? Read the next section first.
Removal is silent — the other trainer is never notified — and their view of your profile ends immediately.
The one etiquette rule that matters
XP farmers often delete a friend the moment the Best Friends level-up fires. The problem: the level-up XP triggers per trainer — if your friend hasn't opened the day's gift or interacted yet, deleting them early can rob them of their 100,000 XP moment.
The community norm: wait until you see they've interacted after the level-up (easiest signal: they send or open one more gift), or give it a week. You lose nothing — and the trainer on the other side of the world gets their payday too.
Also worth weighing before you purge a Best Friend: the Forever Friends tier (90 more days) unlocks remote trading — a full-friend slot might be worth more than an empty one.
Refill with trainers who actually play
When you've cleared the dead wood, refill with fresh, active codes:
- One tap = a fresh, unused code — never a duplicate, and dead codes get voted out of the pool by other users.
- Hunting Vivillon patterns? Refill from specific countries instead of taking pot luck.
FAQ
Does the removed friend lose anything? They lose the friendship level and bonuses with you, same as you — but they are not notified.
Can we get our level back if I re-add them? Within a limited window, yes — but don't count on it for high levels.
How many friends do I actually need? For XP farming, as many as you can interact with daily — remember you can only open 30 gifts a day, so a lean, active list beats a full, dead one.