Chat, friends and trading

This page covers talking to other players, keeping a friends list, sending mail, blocking people you don’t want to hear from and trading safely. Chat follows the game rules.

Chat tabs, with a whisper shown in pink.

Quick reference

• Player menu: right-click or long-press a player’s message, or click a player under Played lately in Friends. The player menu
• Whisper: type /w name, or right-click (long-press) a player’s message and choose Whisper. Whispering
• Friends: key O. Add friends by name or PBO ID. Friends
• Mail: write to any player, even while they’re offline, from the Mail tab in Friends. Mail
• Block: Block on a player’s message, or Block a player on the Blocked page in Friends. Blocking players
• Trainer cards: open any online player’s card from anywhere, through the player menu. Other players’ trainer cards
• Show your party: type /team. Showing your Pokémon
• Trade: stand on the same map, then click their trainer and choose Trade, or type /trade name. Trading
• Own a channel: needs 3 badges; up to 5 per player. Creating a channel
• Harassed or scammed? Block them and use Open Ticket in the Help window.

The chat window

Chat is split into tabs. The standard channels are:

Channel	What it is for
English	The main server-wide chat.
Map	Players on the same map as you.
Trade	Buying and selling. You can post here once every 30 seconds.
Help	Questions about the game.
System	Game messages such as catches, events and announcements.

There are also language channels (for example Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese) and channels made by players. Press Tab on a computer to jump between tabs, or use the arrows at the ends of the tab row.

Emotes in chat

Emotes come from mood packs, which the Donator Store sells. Once you own one, type : in the chat box to open the emote picker, or right-click the Send button (long-press it on a phone). Pick an emote, then press Enter or Send.

Chat settings

Open the gear on the chat window to change:

• Text size (A- and A+, or automatic), the Chat Font and Auto Scroll Chat
• Chat Color Settings, where you can add your own colour rules, for example to colour every message that mentions your name
• Manage Fonts (not on phones or tablets), to load your own .ttf or .otf font for chat
• the chat background, and shortcuts for your emotes
• Channels (see chat channels)

The chat gear opens text size, font, colour and channel settings.

The player menu

The player menu lists what you can do with another player. It opens beside the name or message you pressed, and shows the player’s name at the top. A row you can’t use right now is greyed, with the reason beside it, such as Offline. Click outside the menu, or press Esc, to close it.

Where	How to open it	What it has
Chat	Right-click or long-press a player’s message	View Trainer Card, Whisper, Trade, Add Friend, Crew Invite and Block
Friends, Played lately	Click a player who isn’t your friend	Whisper, Add Friend and View Trainer Card
Friends, a profile’s mutual friends	Click a face	Show in Friends, Whisper and View Trainer Card
Friends, a friend’s profile	Press …	Send Mail, Remove Friend and Block
Leaderboards	Click a player’s row	View Trainer Card, Whisper and Add Friend

On a phone, tap where a computer clicks. Trade from chat only works with a player on your map. Clicking a trainer on the map still opens its own round menu, with challenges, Trainer Card, Trade, Whisper and Add Friend; see the quick menus.

The Crew Hall has no player menu. Press a member on its Members page to get Trainer Card and Whisper buttons, and, for the leader and commanders, the controls to manage them. See the Crew Hall.

Right-click (or long-press) a message in chat to open the sender's player menu.

Whispering

A whisper (private message) only goes to one player, and shows in pink by default. Start one in any of these ways:

• Type /w name in chat and press Enter, then type your message.
• Choose Whisper in the player menu, for example on one of their messages in chat.
• Click the player’s trainer on the map and choose Whisper.
• Open a friend’s profile in Friends and press Message.

To go back to public chat, press Esc while typing or switch to another tab. You can’t whisper someone who is offline, or someone who has blocked you or whom you have blocked. To reach a player who is offline, send them mail.

Friends

Open Friends with the Friends button in the main menu, or press O. The title counts your friends and how many are online. There is no limit to how many friends you can have.

The Friends window on a computer: tabs on the left, your friends in the middle and the friend you picked on the right.

Part	What it does
Toolbar (top)	The search box, the sorts, your status, Your ID and Add Friend. Press / to jump to the search.
Tabs (left)	Friends, Online, Favourites and Crew filter the list. Requests, Mail and Blocked open pages of their own. Each tab shows a count.
Played lately (under the tabs)	The last 5 players you battled, traded with or shared a wild battle with in a Co-op Duo. Click one for their profile, or for a menu if they aren’t your friend.
List (middle)	Your friends, a page at a time. The letter strip beside it jumps to a letter.
Profile (right)	The friend you picked. See friend profiles.

The search finds friends by name and by your note about them. The sorts are:

• Online first: your favourites under Pinned, then the friends under Online now, then everyone else under their first letter, A to Z
• A-Z: by name, under each letter
• Last seen: Online now first, then Offline, most recently seen first
• Recently added: your newest friends first

On a phone or tablet the tabs are icons down the side, and one inbox button holds Requests, Mail and Blocked. Played lately and the toolbar only show on a computer. On a phone held upright, a friend’s profile opens over the list, with a back button.

Adding friends

Your friend has to accept your request. Send one in any of these ways:

• From chat: right-click (long-press) one of their messages and choose Add Friend.
• On the map: click their trainer and choose Add Friend.
• In Friends: press Add Friend and type their name or PBO ID. They don’t have to be online: they see your request when they next log in.
• From Played lately: click a player who isn’t your friend yet and choose Add Friend.

You can have up to 50 sent requests waiting for an answer at once.

Your PBO ID

Your PBO ID is your account’s number. Other players can type it instead of your name to add you as a friend or to mail you. You find it in two places:

• Your trainer card: under your name. Click it (tap on a phone) to copy it.
• Friends, on a computer: Your ID in the toolbar, with a button that copies it.

The game shows the ID in groups of three digits. When you type one, leave out the spaces, or paste a copied ID. Other players’ cards show their PBO ID too.

Friend requests

When someone sends you a request, a window asks you to Accept or Decline. Close it to answer later. If requests came while you were offline, chat tells you how many are waiting when you log in.

The Requests page lists the requests you Received, with Accept and Decline, and the ones you Sent, with Cancel. A request nobody answers is dropped after 30 days.

Friend profiles

Click a friend in the list to see their profile:

• Where they are: online and on which map, or when they were last seen
• Their trainer in their current outfit, with their name, crew and the date you became friends
• Their status, while they are online
• A battle or a trade, if they are in one, with Spectate when you can watch the battle

A friend who turned off Show my team and location on my Trainer Card in Settings shows as online without their map, unless you are on the same map.

The buttons under them:

Button	What it does
Message	Whispers them. For a friend who is offline it is Send mail instead, which mails them.
Trainer Card	Opens their trainer card, while they are online.
Trade	Sends a trade request. Only when you are on the same map.
Favourite	Adds them to Favourites and pins them at the top of the list.
Notify online	Chat tells you when they come online. It is on for every new friend.
…	Send Mail, Remove Friend and Block. Removing and blocking ask first.

Notes and mutual friends

Under the buttons, Your note holds a private note about the friend, up to 100 characters. Only you see it. Click the pencil to change it; on a phone, use Edit Note in the … menu.

At the bottom of the profile are the friends you share. Hover over (or long-press) a face to see the name. Click one for Show in Friends, Whisper or View Trainer Card, and press + with the number to see them all.

A friend's profile shows where they are and what they are doing.

Your status

A status tells your friends what you are up to, in two words and an emote, such as “Fishing” and “Lake Valor”.

1. Open the picker. On a computer, click your status in the Friends toolbar: it says Set a status until you have one. On a phone, tap the first row of your list.
2. Pick two words. Each column has the same categories: Doing, Feeling, Things, Places and Pokémon. Region buttons narrow down Places. The two words can’t be the same.
3. Pick an emote. The emotes come from your mood packs, and everyone has the default pack. On a computer, the gem button under the emotes opens the shop that sells more.
4. Press Set status. The preview shows how friends see it. Surprise me picks for you, and Clear status removes your status.

Your friends see your status while you are online: in their list, and on your profile with how long ago you set it. Players who aren’t your friends don’t see it.

Pick two words and an emote; friends see your status in their list.

Mail

Mail lets you write to any player, friend or not, by name or PBO ID. They don’t have to be online: your mail waits for them until they log in. Mail is text only; you can’t send items or Pokémon with it.

Open the Mail tab in Friends. On a phone, tap the inbox button, then Mail.

Open a mail to reply, delete it or block the sender.

Writing mail

1. Press New mail. It sits over your inbox. On a phone, it is the pen button.
2. Fill in To. Type the player’s name or PBO ID.
3. Write your mail. You have 300 characters. The counter under the box shows how many you have used.
4. Press Send. Chat confirms the mail was sent, or says why it wasn’t.

These buttons start a mail with To filled in for you:

• Reply on a mail in your inbox
• Mail again on a mail in your Sent list
• Send mail on the profile of a friend who is offline, and Send Mail in a friend’s … menu

You can’t mail yourself, a player you blocked (unblock them first) or a player who blocked you.

A mail holds up to 300 characters.

Your inbox

• Unread mail has a dot. Each row shows the sender, whether they are your friend, when the mail came and its first words.
• Open a mail to read it. It counts as read for the sender from then on. Reply answers it, Delete removes it from your inbox and Block blocks the sender.
• New mail while you are online shows in chat as “New mail from” and the sender’s name. When you log in with unread mail, chat says how many are waiting.
• The Friends button in the main menu shows how many unread mails you have. If you folded the main menu away, its arrow shows a red dot instead.

Sent mail and read receipts

Switch from Inbox to Sent to see the mail you sent. A green tick before the time means the player has opened it; a clock means they haven’t yet. Open a sent mail to see when it was read, or Not read yet.

• Mail again writes the same player a new mail.
• Delete removes the mail from your Sent list only. The player keeps their copy.

Mail can’t be changed or taken back once it is sent.

A tick shows that your mail has been read.

Mail limits

The game shows these limits under the mail you are reading or writing.

Limit	Amount
Mail you can send	60 a day, and 20 an hour
Mail to one player who isn’t your friend	3 a day
Length of a mail	300 characters
Mail shown in your inbox, and in Sent	The newest 100. Older mail shows once you delete newer mail.
How long mail is kept	Until you delete it
New accounts	Can’t send mail until they are allowed to chat

Blocking players

Blocking works both ways: neither of you can whisper the other, and you stop seeing each other’s messages in chat channels. A player you block also can’t send you friend requests or mail, and if you were friends, they are removed. Staff can’t be blocked.

• To block: choose Block on their messages in chat, in a friend’s … menu or on a mail they sent you. Or open the Blocked page in Friends, press Block a player and type their name or PBO ID.
• To unblock: press Unblock next to them on the Blocked page.

You can block up to 500 players. Mail from a player you block leaves your inbox, and your mail to them leaves your Sent list; both come back if you unblock them.

Harassment and scams

If someone is harassing or scamming you, block them and report it to staff through the Help button’s Open Ticket link.

Other players’ trainer cards

You can open any online player’s trainer card, wherever they are, not only on your map:

• On the map: click their trainer and choose Trainer Card.
• From a player menu: choose View Trainer Card in chat, in Friends or on a leaderboard. See the player menu.
• On a friend’s profile: press Trainer Card.
• In the Crew Hall: press a member on Members, then Trainer Card.

Only the cards of players who are online open. For anyone else the game says they aren’t online, and Friends and the Crew Hall grey out the button. If you open many cards in a few seconds, the game asks you to wait a moment.

Each player decides what visitors see: whether their team and location show, and whether their stats and journal do. What a card holds, and how to set up your own, is in the trainer card.

Another player's card has no Customize button.

Showing your Pokémon in chat

• Drag a Pokémon from your party or PC onto the chat messages (not the box where you type) to post it in the channel you have open.
• Type /team to post your whole party at once. Use this instead of posting Pokémon one by one, so you don’t flood the chat.
• When you catch something, open the catch message in chat to see the Pokémon.

Type /team to post your whole party in one message.

Chat channels

Besides the standard channels you can join channels made by other players, or make your own. Open the chat gear and go to Channels.

Joining a channel

1. Browse the channels. In Channels, switch from Joined to Browse.
2. Join one. Search for the channel and choose Join. Private channels ask for their 4-character passcode.
3. Choose where it shows. Back in Joined, tick Tab to give the channel its own tab, and Global to see its messages in the English tab as well.
4. Apply. Choose Apply Changes. At least one tab must stay selected.

The channel browser lists player-made channels you can join.

• Crew chat: your crew’s channel is joined for you when you join a crew. Type /crew to switch to it.
• Limit: you can be in up to 10 channels; the Join button tells you when you have reached the limit.
• Talk from any tab: type /c channel name.

Creating a channel

You need at least 3 badges (from any regions) to create channels, and you can own up to 5.

Type	Who can join	How long it lasts	Cost (F)
Global Temporary	Anyone	10 minutes	Free
Global Permanent	Anyone	Until deleted	10,000
Private Permanent	Anyone with the passcode	Until deleted	10,000

Channel names must be 4–13 characters, and a private channel’s passcode exactly 4 characters. Names must follow the rules like any other chat.

The Create Channel form asks for the channel's type and name.

Running your channel

As the channel’s owner you can open its Members list from Channels, then Mute members for a number of hours, Kick them, or Delete Channel.

Crew chat works differently: it can’t be deleted or left, and nobody can be kicked from it.

Your channel's Members list has buttons to mute, kick or delete.

Trading with other players

You can trade Pokémon, items and cash directly with another player.

1. Meet up. Stand on the same map as the other player.
2. Send a request. Click their trainer and choose Trade, choose Trade from one of their messages in chat, or type /trade name. They have to accept.
3. Build your offer. In the trade window, use Add Pokémon, Add item and Add cash. Tap anything in either offer to inspect it.
4. Lock and confirm. When your offer is ready, lock it. Once both offers are locked, check them carefully, then press Trade to confirm.

The trade window shows both offers, one locked and one still being built.

A trade is refused if:

• the Pokémon is above the level cap: 5 + 7 × your badges in the region it was caught in, for both players, with no cap once you are Champion of that region (see the trade level cap)
• it is holding an item, unless that item is needed for a trade evolution
• it would leave you with no Pokémon in your party, or the receiver has no free party slot
• it is a Pokémon that can’t be traded

Trade safely

Only the items in the trade window are part of the trade. Promises to “send the rest later” are not protected, so never hand something over outside the window. Check every Pokémon’s level, nature and IVs before you confirm. For selling to anyone, anytime, use the Trade House instead.

Chat commands

Type these in chat and press Enter. Replace the words in brackets with your own (without the brackets).

Talking and trading

Command	What it does
/help	Lists the commands.
/w [name]	Whispers that player.
/c [channel]	Talks in that channel.
/crew	Switches to your crew chat.
/trade [name]	Sends a trade request to a player on your map.
/team	Posts your whole party in chat.
/clear	Clears your chat window.

Getting around and connection

Command	What it does
/walk	Takes off your mount, bicycle or Running Shoes.
/sync	Re-syncs your position with the server if you are stuck in a doorway.
/ping	Checks your connection to the server.
/online	Shows how many players are online right now.

Pokémon and battles

Command	What it does
/champions	Lists the Champions you can rematch now, and how long until the others are ready.
/evolutions [Pokémon]	Shows how that Pokémon evolves.
/ability [Pokémon]	Lists that Pokémon’s abilities, including its hidden ability.
/weak [Pokémon]	Lists that Pokémon’s weaknesses, resistances and immunities.
/watch [code]	Watches a battle someone shared with you.

Type Pokémon names the way the game spells them, for example /evolutions Eevee.

Windows and shortcuts

Command	What it does
/priest_exp	Opens the Ho-Oh priest’s donation window.
/priest_fish	Opens the fishing priest’s donation window.
/claim_all_gp	Claims all the Game Pass rewards you have earned.
/meminfo	Shows how much membership time you have left.
/donate	Opens the Donator Store.
/news	Opens the news.
/guide and /rules	Open the guides section of the PBO forums and the rules thread in your browser.

Related pages

Trade HouseSell to anyone, anytime, on the player market.

Things to knowTrade level caps, region rules and other PBO specifics.

Crews and Crew WarsJoin a crew, use its chat and fight in Crew Wars.

The game screenYour trainer card, and every button, icon and window on the HUD.

Credits

Based on How to PM, Add friends, Block & Trade, Chat and Custom Chats and Chat Commands on the PBO forums. Rewritten and checked against the game on 1 October 2026; friends, mail and trainer cards checked against version 2.5.7 on 19 October 2026.