by Doc – Owner, Founder, Just Use Tagmo, People
NFC Tools is a subpar app for amiibo trainers: it can make backups of your amiibo, but it can’t write them to NTAG215 chips. Now that Tagmo is on Google Play, you’re better off getting Tagmo and using our instructions for it. It’s a vastly superior app in every way, and I have a direct line to the Tagmo developers, so it’s getting better all the time.
If you’re absolutely set on using NFC Tools for Android to get your amiibo bin files off the figures, then this guide will teach you.
Step 1: Turning on NFC
Your phone has to have NFC functionality. The odds are pretty high that it does, so long as it was made in the last five years. Go to your Settings and look for the NFC function: it’ll probably be under “Connections” if you have a modern version of Android OS.
If you haven’t already, download NFC Tools from the Google Play store. The process is straightforward from here. You’re going to:
- Scan your amiibo
- Save it as a text file to Google Drive, or to your phone
- Use the Amiibots NFC Tools converter to download it as a bin file
Step 2: Scanning the Amiibo
Skip through the 4-part tutorial menu when you first open the app, and tap the “Other” tab. It currently looks like this:
Scroll down and find the “Read Memory” option. It’ll look like this:
Now your phone is ready to scan an amiibo. Your phone has an NFC point somewhere on it – this’ll be specific to your model, but it’s probably about halfway up the back. When the “Approach NFC Tag” message appears, hold the base of your amiibo up to the back of your phone until it vibrates. A scary menu will pop up, with lots of numbers. We’re not worried about that.
Step 3: Exporting the Amiibo as a Text File
Tap the 3-dot menu in the top-right corner. Press the “Export as Text” button at the bottom of the menu.
At this point, the app will ask you to save your text file somewhere. You can either save it to your phone, or to your Google Drive. I recommend saving it to your phone, but if it doesn’t provide you with that option, there’s no harm in saving it to your Google Drive. As long as we can get the .txt file intact, that’s all that matters.
Step 4: Converting it to an Amiibo Bin File with Amiibots
Go to amiibots.com. On the front page of the website, there is a tool that allows you to upload .txt files and convert them to amiibo bin files. That’s what we’re here for. Special thanks to Untitled for going through all the work of putting that tool together; it’s saving a lot of iPhone NFC Tools users from having to pay for this service.
Press “Choose File”, and select the file. If you saved it to your phone, you’ll have to find where you saved it to. If you saved it to Google Drive, you’ll have to find it on Google Drive. Drive usually just puts it on “My Drive”, so look for a .txt file.
When you’ve selected it, hit “Submit”. The converted file will automatically download to your Downloads folder on your Android. You can now use this amiibo bin file in tournaments, on Powertags, and to write NTAG215 chips.
That’s all there is to it! If you’d like to do more with your amiibo bin files, you really should use Tagmo instead of NFC Tools. At the moment, there’s not much that amiibo trainers need from NFC Tools.
Amiibo Doctor 