Gifting

Gifting is the act of giving your villagers presents. This can be done once daily, and is the primary way of raising friendship once the interaction for gifting has been unlocked. There are several nuances to gifting, and this section will aim to address those.

Yes, it increases your friendship level with them. For more info on gifting, please refer to Yue’s gifting guide here - https://yuexr.github.io/acnh/gift.html.

The “safe gifts” section of Yue’s gifting guide is currently out of date. Please refer to the table below for an up-to-date list of safe gifts. Please also note that the “fruit stack trick” no longer works as the gifted item must sell for 750 or more.

Not Safe	These items can be displayed when gifted by hand, via the mail, or on the villager's birthday.	Furniture¹ Food & drinks Certain clothing Tops Dress-up Wearable headwear Accessories Unwearable headwear Bottoms Socks Shoes² Bags Certain tools Nets Fishing rods Watering cans Umbrellas Sparklers Insects Fishes Sea critters Art Music Plucked flowers
Fairly Safe	These items will only be displayed if gifted via mail or on the villager's birthday. Gifting by hand is safe.	Certain tools Shovels Party poppers Ocarinas Tambourines Pan flutes Uchiwa fans Balloons Bubble blowers Pinwheels Tweeters Rugs³
Completely Safe	These items are never stored or displayed, regardless of gifting method.	Fish & insect models Certain clothing items Wet suits Certain tools Axes Slingshots Wands Identified fossils Wallpaper Flooring All materials that don't have the `Place Item` feature Clumps of weeds Tree branches Wood, hardwood & softwood Clay & stones Iron & gold nuggets Pearls Bamboo pieces & shoots, young spring bamboo All sea shells, including summer shells All Bunny Day eggs Heart crystals Acorns & pine cones Candies All crops Mushrooms Unidentified fossils Wasp nests Pitfall seeds Fish bait Medicine Customization kits Customizable phone case kits Timers Birthday cupcakes All fruits Turnips Flower seed bags Saplings Bush & pumpkin starts Trees
Safe but Rejected	These items are never stored or displayed, but the villager will give them back.	Boots Empty cans Old tires Spoiled turnips Used fountain fireworks Bells
Cannot Gift	These items cannot be gifted.	Wrapping papers Vaulting poles⁴ Ladders⁴ Villager photos⁴ Posters⁴ Flower plants Bushes Star & zodiac fragments Cherry-blossom petals Maple leaves Snowflakes Ornaments Fences Nook Miles tickets Saharah tickets Tailors tickets Bell vouchers Dream Bell exchange tickets DIYs Message bottles What was this again? (expired lost item) Wisp spirit pieces Rusted parts Communicator parts Communicator Manila clams

Credit to Soleil#6271 on Discord for writing and maintaining this list!

Wall-mounted furniture is not safe even though it’s not visibly displayed, because enough of it will overload a villager’s inventory to the point where they will start removing wall-mounted furniture and surface furniture.
Birthday-gifted/mailed rugs don’t get physically placed but are stored in their inventory.
Although you can’t hand-gift vaulting pole, ladder, villager photos, or posters, mailing these will actually cause them to get added to their inventory.

How do I get a villager’s framed photo?

Villager framed photos are sought-after items due to being difficult to obtain. In order to receive a villager’s framed photo, you must first be best friends with them. That means you have a level 5-6 friendship with the villager, which can be achieved multiple ways. We recommend reading this page of the FAQ as well as Yue’s Friendship Guide to get a good idea on how to do this most efficiently.

After you’ve achieved a high enough friendship level, there is a chance of the villager giving you their framed photo in return for a gift. The gift must have a sell-back value (that is, the price the item sells to Nook’s Cranny for) of 750 bells. The chance of receiving their framed photo at this point is 6 - 10%, so you may need to gift multiple times before obtaining their framed photo.

As of 2.0.4, villagers may only give you a duplicate of their photo after you have spoken to them for 10 days starting from the day you received their first photo.

Please see Yue’s Gifting Guide for more detailed info.

Does the fruit stack trick still work?

If you are familiar with grinding for villager framed photos, you may know of a popular trick called the “fruit stack” trick, wherein you can obtain a villager’s photo by gifting them a fruit from a stack of fruits with a full inventory. Because the villager cannot give you back an item, they must mail it to you, which has the chance of being their framed photo. Additionally, there is a higher chance of receiving their photo by doing this method, so it was very popular with those trying to get photos quickly.

Unfortunately, the fruit stack trick no longer works as of version 1.9.0, as the game now always checks if the sell price of the item is 750 or more. You can still do the stack trick as mailed gifts still have a higher chance of yielding their framed photo, but you must now choose an item that is stackable and has an individual sell price of 750 or more. Here is a list of items that meet this criteria and are safe to gift (meaning they do not get placed in the villager’s home, so they can maintain an “ungifted” state):

Giant clams
Elegant mushrooms
Rare mushrooms
Gold nuggets
Pearls

And some additional, “unsafe” (can be displayed in villager homes) options:

Blue roses (plucked)
Gold roses (plucked)

If I complete X quest for my villager, will they keep that item in their inventory?

It depends on the type of quest and friendship levels! These are the storing rules for quests:

Buy/Trade an item from your pockets: Always stored
Appreciation or Apology Gift: Always stored
Wrongly Delivered Item Return
- Friendship level 1-2: Always stored
- Friendship level 3-4: Stored 70% of the time
- Friendship level 5-6: Never stored
Left Item Return
- Friendship level 1-2: Always stored
- Friendship level 3-4: Stored 70% of the time
- Friendship level 5-6: Never stored
Borrowed Item Return: Never stored
Catch Request: Never stored

If you are asked to deliver a present, but you open said present before delivering it, the item will never be stored by the recipient.

My villager wears clothing I gifted them, how do I reset it?

Report the villager to Isabelle using the option The way they dress. This will remove from their wardrobe whatever clothing items and/or custom designs the villager is currently wearing.

My villager placed a furniture item (or a mannequin of a clothing) I gifted them in their house, how do I remove it?

If you do not own the Happy Home Paradise DLC, you cannot remove the furniture/mannequin, but you can replace it using this guide. Replacing mannequins forces the clothing item (if wearable) to go into the villager’s clothing inventory and thus be able to wear it.

If you do own the Happy Home Paradise DLC, you can report the villager to Isabelle using the The way their house looks option. This option only becomes available once the full storyline of HHP has been completed. Please see our HHP unlocks page for details.

As of 1.7.0, clothing can now be placed on surfaces, and hence overflowing furniture storage wont remove clothing on surfaces. Caps and Accessories can’t be overflowed with other clothes to be removed since they won’t be removed if there are 4 or less of either of them. The only way to remove them completely is to wait for the villager to gift you them on approach, or try to buy it from them during a house visit.