# Pokémon TCG Card Dex — user reviews

> 50 indexed App Store user reviews of Pokémon TCG Card Dex by THE POKEMON COMPANY INTERNATIONAL, INC., rated 3.30/5 from 3,080 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pokemon-tcg-card-dex/id1448310257/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pokemon-tcg-card-dex/id1448310257.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 1,255 · 4★ 375 · 3★ 364 · 2★ 263 · 1★ 823

## What do users think of Pokémon TCG Card Dex?

Overall sentiment: neutral

**Pros**

- 👍 Good way to keep track of cards
- 🚀 Smooth scanning process
- 💡 Helpful for collectors
- 🔍 Useful search and filtering features

**Cons**

- 🐛 Inconsistent scanning accuracy
- 🔍 Limited card database (only XY and newer)
- 🔍 Lack of support for older card sets
- 💻 Unintuitive user interface

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Scanning often detects wrong cards
- App crashes when trying to scan certain cards
- Card ownership data sometimes resets unexpectedly

**Most requested features**

- Add support for older card sets (Base Set, HGSS, etc.)
- Implement a deck building/management feature
- Allow tracking of card quantities and variants (holo, reverse holo, etc.)
- Improve scanning reliability and accuracy

## Newest reviews (14 of 50)

### 4/5 — Good but needs more.

*2022-10-27, version 1.18*

This app is good for what it has, sometimes a little finicky but I've found if you're doing your regular cards with a yellow border if you have a straight black background it works almost always. And then for your specialty cards without a yellow border, unless the card is either white, yellow, it silver color, a solid white works the best. To be honest my only complaint is that since I've been collecting these since I was a kid, 80% of my cards aren't readable. From what I found it's cards made in 2014-Present. And seeing how most my cards are from Black and White as well as from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, they don't work. My only hope is that the exapand all the what to when they started selling them in 1995 so I can accurately know the cards I have instead of flipping through my card binder. Another nice feature which could be cool is if they allowed you to mark how many of that card you have, just for the convenience factor.

### 3/5 — I like it but there’s downsides

*2021-11-30, version 1.14*

For the most part, I like the app. My main problem is that for celebrations, it keeps resetting my collection to show me having some cards that I don’t and removes some of the ones I do have. I haven’t really been able to tell if it does it with any other sets because of my next issue with the app which is that I collect both the standard set as well as the parallel/reverse holos so it’s a bit more difficult to keep track of my collection on this app. I also collect the older sets like base set, fossil, and such as well as I have plenty of diamond pearl and black and white and it would be nice if they added the older gens to the app

### 4/5 — Almost Perfect!

*2021-11-21, version 1.14*

I thought this was a good app until it refused to scan promo cards and random cards from random packs. Sure I can go search it up, BUT you can’t do that for promo cards, you have to scan those in. Another thing, if this scanner is scanning and you go to grab a new card it will automatically scan a “shadow circle Trainer Stadium” card. It will also scan this card if your trying to scan something that won’t go through, like a card holder binder. strange app, but it will work for some features. Really wish the promo cards would scan though :(.

### 4/5 — Please write a review

*2021-08-15, version 1.12*

A long time ago I bought a ZygrdeEX 190hp  fighting type I bought in a metal box with cards that came with it and i bought it in person not online but when I went to scan it did not work and some of my others so I want to know if it does not have all of the cards because I don’t think there fake because it’s the same quality as all the real ones and I own 1 fake card a kid gave me when I was in grade school and i just want to make sure but I think the ap is cool

### 3/5 — Not Great for Collectors

*2021-06-22, version 1.12*

I’ve been collecting Pokémon cards since 2017. I downloaded this app because I thought it was going to have everything. When I downloaded it at the time, it was just Sun & Moon. But they’ve added support for X&Y and of course Sword & Shield. I used Pokéllector to track my cards before and now I still have to keep it on standby because this app only includes everything X&Y and above and nothing else. They do have the promos but they never seem to update them. There’s also some gaps in the Sun & Moon promo lists. So it’s incomplete.

Not to mention bugs and glitches are very common. Stuff like removing your tracking info, and recently, the app thinks that the Sword & Shield promos are no apart of Detective Pikachu and you must scan them to unlock them. If you do though, you get an exclusive art piece, which is just a white box with the detective pikachu logo on it. 

So if your a collector, especially one that’s been collecting for a long time. Just get Pokéllector and stay away from this app.

### 4/5 — This is really cool, but...

*2021-04-03, version 1.11*

Let me start this off by saying that the reason for four stars is that it’s a really cool idea. This app has a lot of potential, and it just needs the support to reach it. 
Recently I’ve been purchasing a lot more cards, and the Microsoft Word document I have been using to organize my list of cards is no longer cutting it, so this seemed like a great solution. 
This app(at the moment) can only scan cards from XYZ, Sun and Moon, and Sword and Shield. The scanner is a really cool idea. For some reason, I will scan a ton of dofferent cards, and they will all be scanned as a Stadium card, known as “Shadow Circle”. 
The card scanner does not scan cards properly until you can find the correct lighting and angle. It can take a while, but you can get it eventually. 
The card tracker(library thing) is kind of hard to use, and you can not simply sift through all of your own cards as far as I can tell, but it still tracks what you do and don’t have. 
All in all, this is a really cool idea, with a lot of potential, and it just needs some work and updates.

### 4/5 — A good way to keep track of your cards.

*2020-12-14, version 1.10*

This is a neat little app to to help keep track of which cards you have. I definitely wouldn't recommend you use it as a primary way to log your card as it only has the XY collections and beyond. I really enjoy the scan function it included even if it works only about 80% of the time. It really only seems to have issues reading cards that are holographic (including EX, Mega, GX, and V) although you can sometimes get it to read or you can also just look up the card under the app's search feature. It will scan both pokemon and Trainer cards and certain special energy cards. Overall I'd say it's definitely helpful no matter the size of your collection.

### 4/5 — Add textured cards

*2020-09-18, version 1.9*

App is great but I think it has 2 things that could be changed. I think adding texture to the cards that have textures, like full arts or hyper rares for example. One thing that kind of annoys me is that all the cards are shaded so if you want to see all the color you have to actually click the card. It would be more appealing to see all the cards with full color instead of being shaded. You can change this by clicking every card individually and selecting the owned button but then you wouldn’t know what cards you don’t have or do have. Thank you.

### 3/5 — Shadow circle

*2020-06-09, version 1.8*

Cool idea, which is the only reason it got 2 stars instead for 1. The UI is weird and not intuitive. There’s no “grand “collection” section like in TCGO.

But worst of all, shadow circle... Every time I scan a card, it always thinks I scanned some card called “Shadow Circle”. I even got a pure white backdrop to try to fix it. Plus what card I’m actually scanning doesn’t affect it at all apparently, because I scanned a Houndour (almost all black) and kept getting shadow circle, then like 20 tries later it went through when it accidentally only scanned half the card. But the next card I tried was a Bewear (almost all white), and STILL got shadow circle.

I hope it gets fixed because I really do like the idea

EDIT: I’m apparently just stupid, because I fixed the shadow circle issue by getting a dark background. It pretty much scans everything first time now. It is a bit slow though. Gave it three stars instead of two now, because the UI is still weird, and the biggest issue is there’s no place you can go to look at all your cards, you have to go expansion by expansion

### 4/5 — Helpful, but limited.

*2020-05-03, version 1.8*

I downloaded this app because I’m a serious collector/battler in the Pokémon community. I thought this was a great way to keep track of my collection and build my deck. However, it is limited to an extent. It only tracks cards back to the XY series. There are other 3rd party apps for older series, but it would be nice to have it all in one place. Also, this app would be improved 10 fold, and my rating go from 4 to 5, if they added a search function for cards currently legal for tournaments in Standard/Expanded formats. An update every year isn’t too much to ask, and would greatly improve the functionality of the app.

### 4/5 — Lacking but useful

*2020-02-06, version 1.6*

So this app is very useful for keeping track of Pokémon cards but it has it’s downsides. For example, you can’t see the energy you have scanned which is annoying for someone like me who keeps one of every energy and of course, they ONLY have two generations! I get that making sure the scanning (which is iffy) works properly takes awhile but COME ON! Seriously in the description of the app it states that older cards are being added in, but they are working BACKWARDS! At this rate it will take over a year to get to Gen 1! However, the scanning actually is really good IF you follow the directions and find a plain surface, such as a sheet of paper to scan them on.

### 4/5 — Love it, but a few small things

*2019-12-18, version 1.6*

I absolutely love this app, but it still needs a few things. 
I have my card collection sorted into (8 soon to be 9) binders (in the Pokédex order) and I have them sorted as normal, foil, and reverse foil. Of course I don’t have every one for each of them. In the Elite Trainer Boxes they have a booklet that shows the available cards and small check boxes for the normal, foil, and reverse foil. It would be really great if this app had that.
Another thing I would love to see added would be a Pokédex order but still in set order. For example: Lapras would have a drop down box that would show which set it’s in, such as Lost Thunder and Dragon Majesty. You’d still have to look through the Blue Energy category as it is now though.

### 4/5 — Nice tracker, but... Needs features.

*2019-10-31, version 1.4*

I love the Card Dex app because it allows you to view all of the cards in the database that you have downloaded. However, the Browse section doesn't work like the screenshot for Unified Minds shows. It shows Complete Expansion with both, owned and not owned cards. I can’t manage to get the app to do that for me. Browse only shows owned cards, and the “Owned Only” button doesn’t change anything. Neither does changing the filter setting. Also, it would be nice to have a filter that shows only the cards you don't own from an expansion. That's what I was hoping to use in the app. Since downloading, however, it was nice to see XY era added. Despite this, there are still sets we don't have—such as the McDonald's Collection sets, and XY - Kalos Starter Set—which should have been added with the updates that brought XY. If the features I'm looking for are added, it would be nice to be able to view cards all the way back to Wizards of the Coast's Base Set (1999).

### 4/5 — Good game but a few things...

*2019-09-17, version 1.4*

This game is great. It’s really wonderful if you want a way to track all of your Pokémon cards. There’s a few things, although. The scanner is really poor. If you could upgrade that that would be great, because almost every time it can’t identify the card and then it thinks it’s a Shadow Circle, which I have, put the card isn’t that. If you could add more Team Plasma Pokemon that would be great also, because I have a Team Plasma Jolteon and it WONT RECOGNIZE IT. And I kind of wish that you could add a feature that allows you to play with other players. It’s great for tracking cards, but it’s boring. I downloaded this, and it was in the Games category in settings, so I thought it was a game, but I was severely disappointed. Also add as many cards as you can. Thanks!!

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — A few suggestions…

*2023-01-04, version 1.19*

1) Add the information that you would find in the booklet from the Elite Trainer Boxes. Meaning which cards have which, standard/holo/rare/ultra rare, etc. so we can check box the individual cards that we have. Meaning if we still need the holo of the card we can leave that box unchecked. 

2) Make the check boxes a little bigger and spaced out. How many times when trying to check the box that I’ve obtained that card and opened the card in full view. It’s annoying. Space out the rows more and make the check box larger. Again, add more check boxes underneath the card to be able to check non-holo and holo. 

3) Get rid of the scanning card feature. Enough reviews on here complain about how it doesn’t work and it’s broken. It doesn’t work for me either. Taking it away would be an improvement. This app could be the same exact thing as the books that come with the ETBs just in a digital version. Removing this feature would increase reviews. If something is not 100% working, don’t add it. 

These two things need fixed asap. Thanks in advance.

### 1/5 — Not good.

*2022-08-21, version 1.17*

When I started collecting, I mainly had cards from before sun and moon but the app doesn’t have an option to add those sets. I now have more cards from the newer sets but if I want to log my collection somewhere I’d rather just use a google doc because the scanning feature is annoying not to mention that it takes forever to log a few cards so any collector with more than 10 cards probably won’t have much fun putting their collection in the system. If you want my honest opinion, I dislike it. I don’t care if some people find it useful but I’m not gonna reinstall it because I don’t wanna waste my time putting the hundreds of cards that are newer into the system while just leaving my old cards lying around.

### 2/5 — Wait until the scanning gets improved

*2022-11-04, version 1.18*

The app itself doesn’t let me check my deck from the cards I scanned and it consistently fails to scan. Like 7/10 it’ll either not take the scan or show one of two completely different cards from what I scanned such as Dark Circle or one other. 

The app has managed to scan a few cards and work correctly which I’m surprised that even happened. And every card set to look at is a download required. It’s annoying because this app has so much potential. I looked at every suggestion to see how to correctly scan my cards that the app says, did all of it, still got the exact same issues.

### 2/5 — Can’t scan my rare cards

*2022-03-06, version 1.15*

So… downloaded this app a few years ago and scanned my Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno and it never scanned. So now that I grabbed an Eternatus Vmax, it won’t scan either. So I thought “maybe both of my cards are just in the database” and soon found out that many prints of cards are not included. Only the default, holo, gold, and rainbow are included. Which is a problem for me because I mostly don’t have those versions. To  make this even WORSE, all cards that aren’t in XY, Sun and Moon and  Sword and Shield generations ARE NOT SUPPORTED. So I can’t scan my holo shadowless Gyarados or my holo Moltres. 
Aside from that, at least the music is nice.

### 2/5 — Scan doesn’t work

*2021-01-17, version 1.10*

I am a big fan of Pokémon so I have a lot of cards I cannot keep track of! I then saw this app that I thought would help me out a bunch, but when I did tried scanning it keeps bringing me to a different card in a different booster pack. I thought this was just a little scan error so I tried again. After that time it still didn’t work! I tried over and over but no luck. I also tried different cards but it was no use! :/  another thing I had a problem with is that it does not have all the booster packs from gen 1 or gen 2 and stuff like that. Although I still just enjoy playing the tcg game

### 2/5 — Meh

*2019-10-08, version 1.4*

This app seems like a great idea. I love being able to scan my cards and seeing which ones I still need to complete my set collection.  I even like the feature where it tells you from which set the card belongs to, making it a lot easier to determine which set the card came from. Some cards are extremely difficult to scan though, like my BREAK cards for example. The biggest negative I would have for this app would be that when you scan the card, it doesn’t identify it as a holo or reverse holo if it is one. Which means this app is somewhat useless for me. My ultimate goal is to complete both the holo and non holo set of every series that I begin (if applicable), which means that this app won’t be able to tell me if I have both or need one version or another of my collection. I would be thrilled if a later update of this adds that feature in.  In the meantime I have made my own spreadsheet to determine which version of each card it is that I have.

### 2/5 — Serious potential

*2019-05-10, version 1.1*

If this app had more sets it may be worth your time but as it is right now it’s not. The camera was responsive once I put the cards on a dark brown surface and could recognize the correct card every time.
With only carrying sets from as far back as xy this isn’t exactly a great resource right now.
In the future I imagine if it had a minimum of all American and Japanese main series sets it would be worth purchasing for around 3 dollars as a nifty catalog. They could potentially take this further by including promos, jumbo cards, and possibly coins and other accessories.
If this was a true catalog of all official Pokémon paraphernalia I’d pay up to 20 bucks for it.
The two hurdles I imagine they would have would be trying to recognize damaged cards, differentiate missprints, spot fake cards and products, and fit all of that content onto a phone app.
Personally I don’t think fake cards should ever be intended to spot out, that would just create future confusion which should just be judged by the owner not the ai, and as for fitting this on an app they could do something similar to apps like love nikki, who has several thousands of individual items to collect but they are on a cloud at first. It runs slower of the phone side but you can choose to download the database if you have space to prevent loading.
Anyways, not worth getting right now but could be a game changer in coming updates.

### 3/5 — Good… And bad

*2023-03-07, version 1.20*

So this app is a really good place to go to look for a specific card, but it’s not very good for scanning cards, however. Sometimes it will scan the right card, but most of the time it just thinks that I scanned the darker cards, like shadow circle, or sea of nothingness. I don’t know why it does this! It does this for really colorful cards as well! I don’t know if other people have the same issue, but I really hope you could fix this problem because I genuinely think that this could be a very, very useful app! Anyway thank you for making an app that is useful for other people to use!

### 3/5 — I would give it 5 stars but…

*2023-02-23, version 1.20*

I was originally going to give it 4 stars but I can’t scan all of my cards, the app only has expansions all back to X and Y but only as far back as 2014. I’ve been collecting card’s since I was a kid so I have cards from 2009 and even 2004. The scanning function needs work too. If you don’t scan the card on the right surface, in the right light it might show up as a different card and full art cards are harder to scan especially if they’re V pokemon (I have to manually add my V pokemon). At this point I’ll need to buy shadow circle so next time it shows up I can say I have it stop pushing the x button. All in all it’s still a good app, it just needs work.

### 3/5 — I am a little disappointed.

*2022-07-26, version 1.17*

This app is good if you want to scan cards and view your collection as a whole.
This app however is very limited to the cards that it can scan. I have a bunch of team plasma and a Rayquaza C lv X that I would like to scan, but I can’t because this app is limited to X and Y series and everything that came afterwards. Nothing that came before X and Y like black and white or delta species or really any of the OG’s and that frustrates me because of the cards that I wish I could scan.
If the developers are reading this please update this app so we can add the older cards to our digital collection. Thank you and have a good one.

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — It’s perfect, but it needs more

*2023-02-19, version 1.20*

I found this app very good, but I think that they should have more you should have from probably base set because this would allow collectors to use it if you have base set and base set two and whatever then a lot more people can enjoy it but I think it is good cause then you don’t have to scramble around every single set just to find your card. You can just use the search tool or look at the bottom of the Pokémon card to find your set, so I like it, thank you but please add more.

### 5/5 — The app seems to automatically close at some certain points when scanning

*2022-07-25, version 1.17*

I got the CardDex app to document my Pokémon card collection. But there are some cards that won’t seem to go through and I have to enter them manually and also sometimes when I’m scanning the app just automatically closes. I don’t know if it has something to do with my phone or the app itself but please try to fix those issues thanks

### 5/5 — Great app

*2022-06-29, version 1.17*

Great app but I would like if it included the older expansions.
Also it would be nice if it included reverse holos but I know scanning it like that would be hard so maybe when it shows is this your card you can have an option to make it a reversed holo. And if any one if having trouble scanning there cards who is reading the make sure that the card is not in a sleeve, the card is clean, and if scanning a V or Vmax make it so there not any light shining on the card directly

### 5/5 — Great app but should add battling

*2022-03-20, version 1.15*

This is a great app and I love it. A couple of things should be added though. One, a battle feature I use this app on iPod Touch and it is really boring just looking at cards so can you add battling CPUs so we don’t have to download TCGO on iPads and computers. The battling thing if your add should start off with CPUs then you can add online battles if you want.

One last thing is that the scan only worked once for me, That was when is was scanning my Rainbow rare Charizard Vstar. I’m in perfect lighting condition too! Please fix that.
Sincerely, Pokéfan 101

### 5/5 — Great, but one suggestion

*2021-12-12, version 1.14*

This app is great. As long as you find a good surface you can scan many cards at once. You can check your progress on all the card packs and see what sections your missing. Like for example you can check how many fire type cards you have in shining fates, and see how many you need. You can see promo cards and it’s overall a great app. Many people complain about “you can’t check the cards you have” but you can. Go to search, check “only owned” and search. No other categories. This app is very underrated and this is my main app to keep track of cards. I would recommend!

### 5/5 — Good app, only one downside

*2019-12-15, version 1.6*

Let me start off by saying that I love this app, it’s incredibly easy to use and runs very smoothly. It’s easy to keep track of cards and find them. It’s just as easy to hang search cards to register them as it is to scan them.

The only thing I could say would improve this app would be support for the older series of cards. As of right now it only supports X&Y as well as Sun & Moon.

Other than that, the app is worth grabbing for any collector!

### 5/5 — This has so much potential

*2019-10-19, version 1.4*

Oh my gosh, they actually did it. To answer your questions: Yes, you point your camera at a card and it looks it up. Yes, it even works on cards in other languages. (although it will translate it for you, which is a bonus for many) No, it doesn’t know every card. (Only XY and Sun & Moon currently, but I hope they add the rest)

It animates shiny cards, has good menus, and is great for searching cards either with the scan function or the detailed standard search. Lacking some menu options though, as other reviews point out, and of course they need to get their entire library added, but super handy nonetheless.

### 5/5 — Great features, but missing a little.

*2019-06-29, version 1.3*

The best iOS app I have tried so far for Pokémon card cataloging. The scanning is very well done and the search features are very easy and effortless to use. 

For the purposes of deck building however, it is missing a few key things that I would love to see added. The ability to add quantity to my collection would be great so I can tell at a glance just how many copies of a card are in my collection. Also a filter for game type such as standard, extended, etc. would be awesome so I can easily do a search for which of my cards are playable in different formats. 

Still a 5 star app without these features because of the attention to detail and quality of the app but I hope you take my suggestions to really take this app over the top. Great work.

### 5/5 — Great Collection Manager - Would be perfect if it had a deck manager

*2019-05-15, version 1.1*

This app delivers on what it sets out to do; a simple and intuitive way to view and track your Pokémon collection. The user interface feels fresh and clean, and the card art is big and beautiful. It’s a pretty incredible start to what could be an amazing physical PTCG experience. 

I am hoping that they will add a robust deck manager that can utilize the great work they’ve already put into the app. It would be a great addition and would fill a gap in the App Store that is sorely lacking in any substantial deck building/managing tools for the Pokémon card game.

### 5/5 — Good start, just not good as is

*2019-04-18, version 1.1*

I love the idea, and the execution is great! The only thing that I really dislike, is that only Sun and Moon cards are compatible, but the app is extremely new, so I can’t be rude about it yet. Maybe a pack (or bundle of packs depending on card count) every week or two would be nice! 
(For anyone having trouble scanning cards, I recommend a black surface, as it stands out most against your cards, and sleeves mess up the scanner, it thought my sleeved Lunala GX was a Goomy, if you do so, it scans almost perfectly as long as the lightings not too dark or bright!)

---

*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*