Gifts

A Gift is an item that can be sent to friends. Gifts contain items that are of higher value than what Trainers normally obtain from spinning PokéStops. Only one Gift can be sent to each friend per day and at most 20 Gifts that can be opened in a single day. There are two kinds of Gifts — regular and sponsored.


 * Gift's in-game description
 * A box that you can send to a friend. Contains a variety of useful items.

Trainers may have up to 20 Gifts in their Item Bag at any given time and they do not take up any space in the Item Bag. They can be viewed from the Item Bag page and also discarded from there.

Gift sending
Once Trainer receives the Gift from PokéStop, they can send it to their friends. To do so, Trainer needs to enter friend detail page and tap on the Gift button below their avatar display.

The button might be grey if it is unavailable, as either Trainer does not have Gift in their Item Bag or the friend did not have opened the previously sent Gift yet. The button appears grey with an arrow icon if there was a Gift sent to that specific friend that day.

Once the send Gift button is tapped, Trainer can choose which Gift from their Item Bag, they want to send. After choosing Gift, Trainer can send it, add Sticker or tap on the Gift's postcard  to display detailed view of PokéStop or Gym, where the Gift was obtained from.

Trainer can choose Stickers from their Item Bag or buy them from in-game shop. After selecting Sticker it can be swapped or removed before sending a Gift.

After sending a Gift to a Friend, the arrow icon displays on their avatar icon in the Friends list page.

Gift opening
Once Trainer receives the Gift from their friend, they will receive Notification on the top of the screen which can be also viewed in the in-game Notification Tab. On the Friends list, there is also displayed which friend has sent a Gift if it was not opened yet. After tapping on the friend who has sent a Gift, there will be a Gift overlay on their profile page which can be skipped to perform any other action with friend - sending a Gift, battling or trading.

After tapping on the Gift from a friend, Trainer has an option to open the Gift or exit the screen to postpone opening. There is also a Gift's postcard shown with an image and name of the PokéStop or Gym from which the Gift was received and sent – Trainer can tap on the postcard to see details  on the Photo Disc.

When Trainer opens a Gift, there will be animation cued and random of items given to Trainer's Item Bag. Following items and consumables in various amounts can be received after opening Gifts from friends:
 * 7-km Eggs
 * Stardust
 * Stickers
 * Poké Balls
 * Great Balls
 * Ultra Balls
 * Potions
 * Super Potions
 * Hyper Potions
 * Max Revives
 * Pinap Berries
 * Johto Evolution Items (including Sun Stone, Metal Coat, King's Rock, Dragon Scale and Up-Grade) – extremely rarely
 * Rare Candy – only during special events and from Sponsored Gifts

Sponsored Gifts
Sponsored Gifts are different type of Gifts that cannot be sent to friends but instead they can be opened by a Trainer who received them from PokéStops, Gyms or after winning a raid. If Trainer taps on a Sponsored Gift, they will see the logo and name of the sponsor, and they will have the choice to open the Gift or exit the screen. Similarly to opening regular Gifts from friends, Trainer sees a post-card of the Gift with sponsored message and once they tap button, items from the Gift appear in bubbles and are received by Trainer to their items bag. After that the message from the sponsor is displayed and Trainer has an option to tap the “Learn more” button for more information about the sponsored offer.

There is a limit to the number of Sponsored Gifts that can be received in a day, and Trainers are not guaranteed to receive a Sponsored Gift from the same PokéStop or Gym as the Gifts are distributed on an individual account basis.

Trainers can choose to opt out of this feature by deselecting the “Show Sponsored Gifts” option in the Game Settings menu. This setting does not affect ability to receive or send regular Gifts from sponsored or non-sponsored Gyms or PokéStops.

Trainers with Child accounts will not receive Sponsored Gifts, even if permissions for accessing sponsored content are granted through the Niantic Kids Parent Portal or Pokémon Trainer Club website.

Stickers
Stickers are consumable collectables in game, that can be used to decorate postcard of the Gift that is being sent to friends. Trainer can stack up to 25 of each kind of sticker and similarly to Gifts, stickers do not use space in Item Bag.


 * Stickers's in-game description
 * Stickers don't take up space in your Item Bag. You can carry only a certain number of each sticker.

Sticker selection screen received an overhaul at the 0.253.0 update. Stickers are grouped into different categories: featured, recent, messages, Pokémon, characters, and misc.. The Pokémon category also sorts stickers by regions.

Postcard Book
If Trainer wants to save the locations of their or friends' Gifts. They can pin them to be recorded in Postcard Book.

Trivia

 * In order to obtain a 7-km Egg from the received Gift, the Trainer must have an open space in their Egg collection, just like in case of obtaining Eggs from Photo Discs.
 * Initially, opening a Gift required open space in the Item Bag. Presently, an option in the settings exists that allows Gifts to be opened with a full Item Bag. If this option is enabled, any Gifts opened when then Item Bag is full will only reward a small amount of Stardust.
 * In the 0.179.0 game update, Sponsored Gifts were added to the game.
 * In the game files, there is an asset for missing Gift icon which is currently unused.
 * Initially, Trainers could only hold 10 Gifts in their Item Bag. It was increased to 20 during the COVID-19 pandemic and was made a permanent change on September, 2020.
 * Initially, the Bulbasaur Sticker by Funwari had the word "Bye!" included. It was removed from the sticker about a month after its release.
 * According to Niantic on the Postcard feature:
 * "We want this to mirror the feeling of when a friend gives you a present from a store you enjoy or sends you a postcard from a far-off land. It's intentionally sentimental and brings two Trainers together in their travels. Plus, how exciting would it be if one Trainer sent a Gift from a special vacation spot or an exclusive event?'"