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How to Connect A Supervised Nintendo Switch Account to Epic Games

I never really envisioned myself writing this kind of blog post, but I recently spent hours (yes, HOURS) trying to figure out how to connect a supervised Nintendo Switch account to Epic Games. That time was too much to waste, so thought I should share what I finally figured out. Once it was all said and done, I found I could do it in about 10 steps (see below).

Our oldest son received some gift cards for Fortnite V-bucks. You must redeem these types of gift cards on the Epic Games website. However, he has a supervised Nintendo account, so no email is associated with his Nintendo account. This made it difficult to connect his account rather than my parent account to an Epic Games account. V-bucks are non-transferrable, so we had to figure out how to redeem them on his own account.

Fix the “Nameless” Epic Games Account

Since he had already played Fortnite on his Nintendo Switch, he had what some refer to as a “nameless Epic Games” account. When he first started playing Fortnite, he chose a screen name and was automatically assigned an Epic ID. I had to figure out how to access this “nameless” account and connect it to his Nintendo Switch supervised account.

It seemed that I should be able to choose the option on Epic Games to sign in using a Nintendo account, but it kept taking me to a form that required an email address rather than opening a window to sign in a Nintendo account. I felt like I was going round and round in circles! Then I stumbled on the key to making it work. The key? Use an incognito window in my browser. Once I did that, it was smooth sailing. It’s painful now to think of how much time I spent. I listed step by step instructions below. I hope this saves you some time!

10 Steps to Connect a Supervised Nintendo Switch Account to Epic Games

I wrote these instructions assuming your child already has Fortnite installed on their Nintendo Switch and has a “nameless Epic Games” account (see above).

  1. Open incognito window in your browser. I used Chrome.
  2. On epicgames.com click sign in. Do not use any previous Epic login information.
  3. Click on the option to sign in using a Nintendo account
  4. A window should pop up with the Nintendo sign in page.
  5. Log in using your child’s Nintendo sign-in ID and password.
  6. You’ll be prompted to ask permission from your parent.
  7. Check the parent’s email used for their Nintendo account for the permission request email.
  8. Open that email and click on the link and sign into the parent account to approve sharing of information with Epic Games. NOTE: I went through this process again for my other son since originally posting these instructions. There were some additional steps to confirm that you are an adult. Just follow the instructions as they come up. After confirming I was an adult, it automatically brought me to the page I needed to create my son’s account.
  9. Go back to Epic to sign in using your child’s Nintendo account again.
    • Enter an email address. You will need a previously unused email address to create the Epic Games sign in.
  10. You should be logged in and able to view your child’s Epic account display name at the top right hand corner of the window.

Now you’re all set up to redeem the V-bucks gift cards to your child’s own Epic account!

NOTE/UPDATE 9-25-22: Per one of the comments below, if in the EU/UK, children under 10 will lose the voice chat option once the accounts are linked. Something to be aware of.

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96 Comments

  1. This has already helped a ton. Seems like I am in the same boat you were in.
    I’m getting hung up on step 5, for some reason I can’t enter my child’s info into the Nintendo account. He is 10 and not able to have one of the 13-17 accounts so my question may be targeted at a different age group.
    My kiddo has a supervised account under my primary account, and I am able to successfully, at least they say it’s successful, update his password under the family group section. When I go back to enter w/ his email address and the new password I put in I keep getting email/password incorrect. Pretty sure I’ve got this all entered in correctly but after hitting this same brick wall several days in a row I’m up for any advice. Thanks for your time,
    -Scott

  2. This was a life saver and I would have been lost had I not found your blog when I searched how to connect a kids fortnite acccount to Epic games. We encountered a few mores steps than the 10 you listed – first we had to realize he had his own Nintendo username under the family account (hadnt touched it since we set it up) and then we had to update his nintendo account to be able to receive/send info to 3rd party apps. Once we overcame that it was smooth sailing – unfortunely this was all after we had already attempted a vbucks card with an epic games account that I had created and attached to my husbands profile on the switch – I’m sure he will find a way to spend 1000 vbucks just fine though 🙂 Thank you for taking the time to share your lessons learned that saved extended frustration into our Sunday morning – which happens to be our sons 9th birthday 🙂

  3. How did you find out your child’s password?
    My son is 7 and set up under my Nintendo family plan but it’s the part where I need to log into Epic via HIS switch account that’s the issue.
    I can see his user-ID but unsure what his password would be (my password doesn’t work) – possibly the same issue as Scott above…
    Have been looking into this on/off for weeks so at least feel better knowing I’m not the only one!

    1. Hi there! Sorry I’m just seeing this. I knew my son’s Nintendo password from when I set it up. You may be able to do a forgot password request on the Nintendo website.

      1. I’ve given permission to link the accounts (supervised Nintendo account) just when I go to set up the epic account it’s asking for his date of birth… Not sure what to put here, as our kid is 7 and has a lot of progress, nervous that I’ll muck something up or get him locked out! Somehow, the vbucks have registered anyway, so I’m wondering if I should leave it for now….

        1. I’m not sure either. I can’t remember having to put in a date of birth for our boys. That could be new or I May just not remember. Our youngest is 7 too, so if I did put his birthday in it didn’t mess him up.

    2. You have to login to your Nintendo account, preferably on a desktop. Go into family group. Select your child’s username, go to sign-in/security settings. Click the edit button, put in your password. This will allow you to see your child’s ORIGINAL username, and their password.

  4. Another vote of thanks here. An impulse purchase whilst shopping with my daughter turned into 2 hours of frustration. Normally there’s a clear internet consensus with a solution, however here I was about to give up before I found your solution.

  5. Thank you also from Italy…It works for me, I was writing to Epic support but I found your article and saved my time 😊

  6. Incognito! Genius. We have had such trouble with this in the past. Thank you so much for the post and for saving our sanity!

  7. So glad to have found this! I was getting very frustrated trying to figure this out. Why do they need to make things so complicated?

  8. Thank you soooooo much i was going mad speaking to nintendo and emailing epic games no one could help me! Thank god i found your article! THANK YOU

  9. Will this work if there is already an Epic account linked to the family Nintendo account? I haven’t tried your steps yet because I am not with the devices, but in the past I have attempted things I read from Epic and the information I found was I can’t link if there is an account already linked. That doesn’t make sense if I have multiple children playing the game. I am ready to try this when I get to the devices.

    1. I’m not positive, but I think it would work. I set up an Epic account for the email associated with our family account before I found this solution hoping I could transfer the Vbucks that way (you can’t), and it still worked.

  10. Oh my!!!!! The hours I wasted before I found your blog. Not to mention the impatience and me feeling like I was IT illiterate!!! THANK YOU!!! So easy when you know how….

      1. THANK YOU! why does this stuff have to be so hard? And I consider myself tech savvy! Appreciate you writing this blog, this was super helpful

  11. So if I already redeemed the V-bucks code on an Epic Games account that was linked to my parental Switch account does that mean I have lost that $?

    1. I think that it would mean that, yes. One of my ideas before I found this solution was to redeem the Vbucks gift card on my Epic account and “gift” them to my son. Unfortunately, you can’t transfer Vbucks to other accounts.

  12. I cannot get past step 9. I don’t have an email address that I can use. Help! I’ve changed all the settings to add epic games etc.

  13. Thank you so much!!! I have been stuck in that same loop for way too long!! And since it’s Christmas morning of course there isn’t anyone available at Support. Your blog post saved a little six year old boy’s Christmas morning! Thank you again!

  14. Don’t even know if this is going to make sence ….

    I have two restricted accounts my one sons restricted account has an Nintendo account but also an epic account on his Xbox .

    My seconds son also has a Nintendo account but it is a “supervised” account on the family account ? He plays Nintendo usually , but for Christmas had an Xbox ?!
    I am so so stuck!
    I am logging into epic with the same emails as Nintendo but that’s brining my first sons account up?

    I feel like I’m going to cry? Can anyone help?

    Thanks

    1. So sorry you’re having a hard time with it! I’m not sure exactly, but it sounds like there may be 4 separate accounts-2 for each of your boys. The instructions in my post should help with the supervised Nintendo account, but I’m not sure about the others. I wish I could be more help! Good luck. I hope you’re able to figure it out! 🤞🏻

  15. Thank you, My son received a Fortnite V-bucks gift card and I needed confirmation because I knew there would be a risk to add credit to the wrong account knowing he started to play under an account with my email address first, I know it wasn’t a good idea but I didn’t wanted to lose my time setting up this when I didn’t really agree to let my son play to this addictive game (but social pressure wins again, but I was a young gamer so I wish he will lose interest like me while growing). Anyway thank you so much again, you save me time (after 2 hours of searches…). Happy holidays!

  16. Very helpful. However, the icognito mode made it so epic would not allow me to select a console login. It worked better just using my kid’s ipad.

    Had to do this three times. Two hour process. One email waisted, really great Nintendo and Epic. Really, really good.

  17. I’m not sure how I couldn’t find your post for about a week, then suddenly I stumbled upon it. Thank you so much, I was starting to feel my son’s pain when I told him he might need to start over with a fresh Fortnite account.

  18. This was a big help – but in case anyone didn’t mention it above make you go onto the Parent’s Nintendo account – click on the Child’s sub account in the Family Group and where it says:

    Services with Access to Account Information
    Make sure you choose the option ‘Ask For Permission For All New Services’
    If the other option ‘Do Not Allow My Child To Share Account Information’ then you won’t receive the email asking you for permission

    Apart from that – the blog was so useful

  19. You have no idea how much time I spent trying to figure out this exact issue – an embarrassing amount really. Your article was extremely helpful!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting it!

  20. Wow you have no idea how much help this will be. I have been going in circles for months- dealing w Nintendo, epic games customer service , my brother originally making the account and not the smartest one in the family lol … and still haven’t gotten anywhere. He has so many skins on the Fortnite account and I want to be able to use this Fortnite account on other platforms and not just his switch. After all of this we had to make a new account for his PlayStation which is now linked to epic games but how do I link his switch account when it’s not considered nameless anymore? Will I have both accounts then linked to epic games and have a choice to go one each account on different devices? Hope this makes sense. No idea what I’m doing lol

  21. Thank you so much for this! I was going crazy trying to figure out how to load the v-bucks cards to my son’s account. I did get a little stuck with logging in with his Nintendo account because I was using the wrong thing for his Nintendo ID but I found how to get the correct ID and it worked from there. My son is 11 and I had to allow up to “teen” level of content for Fortnite. I GREATLY appreciate you posting this information!

  22. Thank you for this blog as I spent hours yesterday trying to figure this out. I’m not 100% there but I’m closer with the help of this. Where I get lost is on step 8. My childs account already shows it can share information with EPIC so I don’t believe there is anything to do with that email. When I go back to EPIC for step 9 it brings me in the same circle. Do I as a parent need to create an EPIC account first and then my kid should have one under a different email address? I’m confused by step 9 when it says to enter an email address of one never used before by doing this does that create the EPIC account for the kid?Thank you

    1. Hi Karen,
      Enter an email address that doesn’t have an Epic account already associated with it. My sons each already had their own email, so I used those. You could easily set up a new separate Gmail if needed. The “nameless” Epic games account already created on your child’s Switch will then be associated with that new/other email. Hope that helps!
      Erin

  23. This was godsend. I was about to throw my sons computer across the room. Hours and hours of work until I found this post. THANK YOU! I have shared it with my mom friends who were also beyond frustrated.

  24. Hello,
    I am on the parent permission email and it’s asking me to complete the Child Sign Up with an email address and password. This is where you said to create a new email address. Will my son lose all his previous purchases on Fortnite when I create this new email?

    Thanks,
    Amber

    1. If he didn’t already have an email address associated with the account, I wouldn’t think he’d lose them. You’re basically “attaching” an email address to an account that didn’t already have one. Hopefully that makes sense!

  25. THANK YOU!!! This was a timesaver. I was in that loop over and over again and vowed to never buy Fornite bucks ever again after I sent the v-bucks to the wrong son’s account! Thanks to your article, I was able to do it right this time!

  26. I have renamed my child ‘Erin’ in your honour. He’s a boy, but that just shows how grateful I am! Thank you

  27. Thank you so much for this!! Saved the day for sure! Unbelievable this was so incredibly difficult and unsuccessful before finding your post.

  28. Hey all, I am late to this one…has anyone figured out how to get the “Under 13” accounts connected?

  29. This article saved my life. Not to mention my relationship with my son, whose last vbuck redemption ended up in my personal account due to his Nintendo account being supervised 😂 many thanks.

  30. Thank you for this post. We’ve been running around for hours trying to upgrade my child’s nameless fortnite account. I’ve been putting my log in when I should have been putting my CHILD’S log in instead. When I read your post, we were able to finally fix it.

  31. OMG bless you and may the angels sing your name!!! I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to make our new PS5 work with the Fortnite credentials from our Switch. I was ready to tell my kids that they had to start all over with fresh skins and battle passes and emotes… the tears were imminent. But the Google gods brought me your blog post and I’m so so thankful! Thanks Erin! I was thinking I needed a PhD to make this darn Epic Games connection happen, but you helped me do it without such onerous education!

  32. So i followed all the steps but think I got screwed up somehow and the display name my son uses says its already taken. Maybe when I made the epic account i didn’t use his display name as i should have, is there any way to go back? It wants me to make a new display name

    1. Hey Kristen,
      You shouldn’t have to enter your child’s Epic display name at all. You’re basically signing into an account that already exists but is “nameless” up to this point. I’d try going through the steps again and make sure you’re in an incognito window in your browser. Hope that helps!

  33. THANK YOU SO MUCH for this post. It saved my life. It still took me longer than it should have but would have been lost without this help. Much appreciated.

  34. I wish I caught this sooner. Thank you very much for your nicely laid out steps! Worked like a charm! However, if anyone accidentally redeemed v-bucks on the parent account (like I did), you can gift the items over to your kid’s account after you “friend” them online. Takes a couple of days to verify a new “friend” but should work after that. Good luck and thank you Erin!

  35. Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you! I had reached out to Epic games and honestly they were not helpful, this gave me exactly what I needed!

  36. Big warning: in EU/UK, if your child is under 10, he/she will lose the voice chat option once the accounts are linked because now Epic knows their age. With the nameless account voice chat could be enabled regardless of the actual age of the player.

  37. Thank you so much – this worked! I spent hours over several days and ultimately on and off for months because we’d give up and try again, going back and forth on and off with Epic games to no resolve. The key was the browser suggestion!

  38. OMG!! Once I found the right question to ask Google, and found this, I had it made in the shade. Thank goodness I didn’t add the v-bucks to my account. I would have been torched! Now that I can sign in to my child’s Epic games account I have it made. You may not have to use incognito – once you know the correct Epic games account, I did not have to sign-in with Nintendo, I just signed in directly to my child’s account. Thank you!!!!

  39. Thank you SO MUCH! I gave up with v-bucks about a month ago, and just ended up sending them as a gift from my account. But not we had to redeem a code for items that can’t be gifted. This blog was a lifesaver.

    Why couldn’t this be on the Epic Games FAQ?!?!

  40. Thank you so much Erin for this write-up. I’ve used this process several times now to set up child Epic accounts correctly! You’re info here has been helpful to me and many other parents (as seen by the posts). Thanks again for doing this; much appreciated!!

  41. Erin! Ugh thank you so much! Idk why doing this is so daunting but thanks to your easy steps I was able to do exactly what I needed to do. Nothing like “new” technology to make you feel old! 🤣

  42. Thank you for this!!! I was stuck on trying to add vbucks to his fortnite account for 2 days!! He’s now extremely happy that I finally could do it! I’m keeping this bookmarked!

  43. This is exactly what I needed to help my son get his account figured out! Finally! Thanks a mill! I too wasted hours of my life lol

  44. Thank you so much, it worked perfectly! I too had many hours logged trying to figure this out. I’m very happy I found your post.

  45. I can’t thank you enough for sharing this! I spend hours trying to figure this out and my son was so upset that I couldn’t do it. Thank You!!!!

  46. Holy sh*t! And excuse by language but I have been searching for an answer since 2020 and honestly, every time I have given up. But today I must have searched the right wording or key phrase because your post popped up. Thank you thank you THANK YOU for writing this!!!! I followed every step and it worked.

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