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The Daily Insight

How does pokemon go sightings work

Author

Rachel Davis

Updated on March 22, 2026

Sightings also removes any duplicate Poké mon, so that you’re no longer looking at that disheartening list of endless Pidgeys: if there is …

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So what exactly is Sightings? In the bottom-right of your screen, you’ll still see what used to be the Nearby Tracker icon, but once you open it, you’ll notice the list has been renamed…

The new sightings system removes pokemon that are no longer currently in the area. This combined with the fact that there are no more duplicate listings, means the tab is less cluttered and more reliably showing what is actually around you.

The nearby system was originally supposed to show you pokemon spawns in order of distance (Which we all know didn’t work at all). Essentially Sightings is now a list of what pokemon are currently in the area as opposed to listing every nearby spawn as an individual pokemon, which also caused a bunch of duplicates to clutter the tab.

Whereas the old Nearby list would not update if a Pokemon de-spawned, the new Pokemon Go Sightings menu does. It will actively remove any Pokemon that you move too far away from (the scanning radius usually being about 200 meters), or that has its timer run out, making it uncatchable.

With the new update, we now have “Sightings.” However, there is no indication of how this differs from “nearby Pokémon”, though in the patch notes, it states they are testing a variation of “Nearby Pokémon” which appears to be the “Sightings.” How do “Sig…

What does find these Pokemon in the wild mean? The ones on the tab with grass behind them are, indeed, closest to your location. These Pokemon are within 200 meters of you. The grass also means that the Pokemon are found in the “wild” and not at Pokestops, according to people who have been able to compare this feature with the tested beta tracker.

It gives you one of two results for each Pokemon. If the Pokemon in question is near a pokestop it will display an image of that pokestop behind it. If the Pokemon is not near a pokestop it will have grass behind it. This is super useful in urban areas with …

The ‘Sightings’ tracker Some players have the Sightings version of the tracker. This tracker tells you which Pokemon are currently in your area and is basically the same type of tracker you saw…

Many times in my neighborhood, I see the sightings show 9 Pokémon. Could it be the case that there are more than 9 and I am missing (potentially) a rare Pokémon that does not show up in Sightings? Bonus points: I have read somewhere that the Pokémon you are tracking might not show up in Sightings when you enter/leave 70 meter area.

Sightings is very much like the old Nearby (which you can read about here). It gives you an idea of what Pokemon are near you. It used to also give you directions toward them, giving you a sort of hot and cold mechanic where you could slowly track down the individual Pokemon.