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Questions about portal key possesion in Ingress:

  1. Is there a limit to the total number of Portal Keys you can keep in your inventory?
  2. If yes, what happens when you key limit is reached and you got a new key via hacking?
  3. Is it "legal" to hold several keys to the same portal?

There were rumors that 35 was the limit, according to this article 35 is the maximum number of portal keys including duplicates a player can hold. However the recent update confirmed that this was rather an app bug.

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6 Answers 6

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As of version 1.12.5 of the Ingress Scanner app, we can answer these three questions as follows:

  1. There is a limit of 2000 inventory items; this would limit your number of portal keys along with other items.
  2. When you're at this limit, or if you upgraded while above this limit, your ability to hack is blocked, meaning presumably, that doesn't happen.
  3. It is very clearly possible to hold duplicates of keys, they are shown in your inventory with the title addendum "(n)" where n is the number of copies you own. When you scroll through the keys to make a link, each copy is it's own item card shown grouped with its like portal keys.

It's further worth pointing out that now when you hack a portal it is no longer necessary to not be holding that portal's key in order to receive a key, or a copy of the key for your inventory. E.G. without managing your inventory in any special way, you should slowly find yourself acquiring 2 or more keys for the same portal.

This version's server side changes have also made it far less likely that you'll get a key at all; I had to hack a portal I live almost on top of 20 times over two days to get a single key for it. I have yet to get the keys for 4 portals around me that were added days ago after I submitted them.

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    Was that changed again? I started playing with Version 1.33.0 and now have 1.34.0 and so far I got a portal key everytime I hack a portal. But I only get one. I never got a second key, no matter how aften I hack the portal. But when I used that key for a link then I always get a new one the first time I hack the portal again.
    – kayahr
    Commented Aug 28, 2013 at 15:45
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I have a friend who has a portal within the distance of sitting at his desk. He has 39 keys of just that portal. Needless to say I don't think there's a limit

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Right now there is no limit on either number of different portal keys (tested up to 100+) or on the number of copies of the same key (tested up to 4) you can hold.

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    no longer the case as of 1.12.5
    – rwyland
    Commented Jan 7, 2013 at 6:19
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That is not true, you can have several keys to the same portal, the trick is to drop the existing key before you hack, gain the new one and then pick the dropped one.

-Repost of BanditoBunny's answer in a comment so we can upvote the correct answer

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  • You might want to mention @ChrisMancini's comments as well.
    – Nathan
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 3:07
  • Uh, ok.... as Chris speaks to, this may not be a permanent solution if the rules for obtaining keys are changed...
    – Adam
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 23:16
  • @Adam I think we should document the current state of affairs as what they are. It can be updated if and when it changes. It's not like we're discussing editing wifi packets enroute. The UI very clearly lets you pick up as many duplicate keys of a portal as it does (I haven't done more than 3 but BanditoBunny did 4) and it won't give you any duplicate from hacking so you must drop all the keys somewhere before hacking. Maybe they just want you to risk leaving your stash vulnerable while you're hacking.
    – dlamblin
    Commented Dec 11, 2012 at 4:52
  • @dlamblin I wholly agree. It doesn't even seem like a hack to me.
    – Adam
    Commented Dec 11, 2012 at 20:47
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You can only have one portal key per specific portal, but you can have many different portal keys. At this time, it is not known if there is a hard limit of how many different portal keys a player can have. For more information:

Portals & Linking

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    That is no true, you can have several keys to the same portal, the trick is to drop the existing key before you hack, gain the new one and then pick the dropped one.
    – BanditoBunny
    Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 20:27
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    Bandito, I am pretty certain that what you describe is an exploit, since the system only allows you to receive one portal key via hacking. This will be most likely fixed in a patch to the game.
    – Christopher Mancini
    Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 1:55
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    This might be, but this is how it works right now :)
    – BanditoBunny
    Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 9:07
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    I don't think it's a bug, because you can also pick up keys that you already have from portals that you busted up. On top of that, you might want to trade keys with team members.
    – Volker Stolz
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 13:54
  • Then why can't you acquire more of the same portal key via hacking? Then maybe not getting more from hacking is the bug? Either way, the events are yielding inconsistent results, which I do not think was the intent.
    – Christopher Mancini
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 17:20
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When I checked tonight I had 35 portal keys. Portal keys are used by by creating links, so make sure you re-hack a portal after you have linked to it.

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    Can you acquire the 36th key?
    – BanditoBunny
    Commented Dec 3, 2012 at 15:50
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    As of now I have 67, in total. Including a number of sets of three, one set of five ...
    – karora
    Commented Dec 16, 2012 at 9:00

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