Overview
The Mystery Box is a reusable item that attracts the Mythical Pokémon Meltan to your location for 60 minutes. After the hour ends, the box stays in your Item Bag and can be recharged after a cooldown by sending another Pokémon to Pokémon HOME or a compatible Nintendo Switch game. It provides a repeatable route toward evolving Meltan into Melmetal, which requires 400 Meltan Candy.
Unlike Incense or Daily Adventure Incense, the Mystery Box generates encounters at its full rate even while you stay in one place. Shiny Meltan availability is strictly tied to special events, so opening the box outside of a Shiny-enabled period will only produce standard Meltan encounters.
How to get it
Send a Pokémon from GO to Pokémon HOME or to a compatible Pokémon: Let’s Go game.
After the displayed cooldown, send another Pokémon to reactivate it. The normal cooldown is three days; events can alter it.
How to use it
Open the charged box from Items when you have time, balls, and storage for Meltan.
The box remains in your inventory after use and can be recharged again.
Worth knowing
Use Pinap Berries to work toward Melmetal’s 400-Candy evolution requirement.
Shiny Meltan availability is event-dependent. Opening more boxes outside a Shiny-enabled period does not enable Shiny encounters.
Plan a Meltan Candy session
Because the Mystery Box attracts Meltan at the same rate whether you are walking or standing still, it is ideal for stationary catching sessions. Before opening it, stock up on Poké Balls and Pinap Berries and clear enough Pokémon Storage so you can spend the entire 60-minute window catching rather than managing your inventory or walking to find spawns.
Using the ordinary three-Candy catch reward as a baseline, 50 Meltan catches supply 150 Candy. If all 50 are caught under a regular Pinap Berry’s effect, that becomes 300. Transferring 40 unwanted Meltan afterward adds another 40 Candy at the normal transfer rate. These are planning examples, not a promise of a particular spawn count or catch success.
Keep the Meltan you want to evolve before transferring extras. A good session can build Candy and Stardust together, but the box does not remove Melmetal’s separate evolution cost.
Connections and the recharge period
Send a Pokémon to Pokémon HOME, or to GO Park in Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! or Let’s Go, Eevee!, to obtain the box. After using it, wait for the displayed cooldown to finish and make another qualifying transfer. The normal cooldown is three days, but events can shorten it. Sending additional Pokémon during the cooldown does not provide extra boxes.
Getting the box through Pokémon HOME
The Pokémon HOME mobile app offers an accessible way to get and recharge the Mystery Box without needing a Nintendo Switch or a paid Pokémon HOME subscription. Link the same Nintendo Account in both apps, then open Pokémon GO and navigate to Settings → Connected Devices and Services → Pokémon HOME → Send Pokémon. Select an eligible Pokémon that you are willing to move permanently, as any Pokémon sent to Pokémon HOME cannot return to Pokémon GO.
Special or restricted Pokémon—including Spinda, Favorited Pokémon, your current Buddy Pokémon, Pokémon defending Gyms, costumed Pokémon, Shadow Pokémon, Mega-Evolved Pokémon, and Gigantamax Pokémon—cannot be sent.
Sending Pokémon through the GO Transporter consumes GO Transporter Energy. The transporter starts fully charged the first time you use it, recharges automatically over time, and can also be refilled immediately with PokéCoins. Because Legendary, Mythical, and Shiny Pokémon drain a large amount of energy, selecting a common everyday Pokémon is the easiest way to recharge the Mystery Box. After sending a Pokémon in Pokémon GO, open the Pokémon HOME app to receive it before attempting future transfers.
Sending a Pokémon to Pokémon HOME is completely separate from transferring a Pokémon to Professor Willow, and only a transfer to Pokémon HOME or GO Park will charge the Mystery Box.
Open the charged Mystery Box from your Item Bag when you are ready to start catching. Only one spawn-attracting effect can run at a time: you cannot activate the Mystery Box alongside Incense, Daily Adventure Incense, the Coin Bag, Incense shared through Party Share, or spawn-generating Adventure Effects such as Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam.
Once opened, the 60-minute timer counts down continuously in real time—even while you manage Pokémon Storage or close the app—and Origin Forme Dialga’s Roar of Time Adventure Effect does not extend or pause the Mystery Box timer.
