It’s a great idea to keep track of everything you own, one of those things you likely remind yourself of when you’re walking through IKEA trying to find a new bookshelf. Then you go home, pull your hair out trying to setup said bookshelf, and promptly forget to record your purchase anywhere.
There’s a number of tools designed to help you keep track of the stuff you own, from the lauded Delicious Library that we found too memory-hungry and feature-lite for much good to the now-discontinued Bento database app. You could even keep a spreadsheet of stuff you own, but that’s not very fun or simple.
Or, you could use the new Compartments 2, an inventory app that’s perfect for cataloguing everything you own without too much fuss — and with some OS X Mavericks only features, too.
The Simple Way to Track Your Stuff
Apple Maps-powered maps right in Compartments 2
Compartments is a home inventory app that’s been around for several years now, but its new v.2 is far more polished than the first version. It’s lost some of its old skeuomorphism in favor of a more polished, Mavericks-style interface that fits right in with the new iBooks and such. And, it’s one of the first 3rd party apps on the Mac that integrates with the new Maps API, which makes its locations listings come to life with beautiful interactive satellite views of your location.
A streamlined interface with less skeuomorphism
There’s no fancy iPhone-powered importing or barcode scanning here — it’s all about entering the data yourself that you want to keep up with. And that’s simple enough in Compartments. There’s beautiful retina-ready icons to categorize your stuff and the rooms in your house where you keep said stuff, and enough info sections to save anything from warranty info to serial numbers from your products.
Speaking of warranty info, Compartments has a nice Warranty Guard feature that’ll show you the products you own with active warranties and those whose warranty is about to expire. Combine that with instant search and the smart collections feature that’ll automatically group items based on their type, tag, name, or attribute, no matter what building or room they’re in, and you’ve got the perfect way to find info about your stuff anytime you need it.
Reports just might be the best feature.
The nicest feature, though, in my opinion is the Reports tool. Add all your stuff to Compartments and press CMD+R, and you’ll get a printable list of everything you own, complete with a thumbnail picture and quick description of the item, and the total value of everything in that house. It’s a nice quick reference you can print out or save to PDF and keep it on your other devices to always know what you own.
If you’ve already bought a copy of Compartments 1, you’re in luck: Compartments 2 is a free upgrade on the Mac App Store. Otherwise, if you’ve been looking for a simple way to catalogue the stuff you own, something a tad nicer than a spreadsheet but not too expensive or complicated, you should pick up a copy of Compartments. It’s nice, and at $11.99 won’t cost more than the stuff you’re cataloguing.
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