Quick start — your first room in 10 minutes

ItemTrack works in a clear order: a location holds boxes, and a box holds items. You'll see this 3-step banner at the top of your dashboard until you've completed each step at least once. This article walks you through it.

The fastest way to understand the system is to document one room end-to-end. Pick a small one — a closet, a bathroom, a single drawer is fine. Don't try to do the whole house on day one.

What you'll need

• Your phone (for photos and scanning)
• A small printer, or a sheet of pre-printed sticker labels (we'll come back to this)
• About 10 minutes

1. Create your account

Sign up at the registration page. You'll get a verification email. Click the link.

If you don't see the email, check spam, then account recovery.

2. Create your first location

A location is a physical place where things live. Examples: "Home", "Garage", "Mom's basement", "Self-storage unit on Hertogstraat".

1. Tap Create location on the onboarding banner — or open the Locations page and tap New location.
2. Give it a name. That's all that's required.
3. Save.

You can have one location or many — most people start with just "Home" and add more as needed.

3. Create your first storage box

A box is a physical container at a location. Examples: a moving box in your garage, a plastic bin on a shelf, a drawer in your kitchen, a tote in your attic.

1. Tap Create box on the onboarding banner — or open the Boxes page and tap New box.
2. Give it a label. "Kitchen", "Christmas decorations", "Tax docs 2024" — whatever helps you remember what's in it.
3. Pick the location you just created from the Location dropdown.
4. Save.

The box automatically gets a unique QR Label. You can print it from the box's detail page using the Print label button.

Note: if your "first room" is just a single shelf with loose items and no real container, you can still create a box called "Living room shelf" and treat the shelf as the box. The model is flexible.

4. Add an item to the box

An item is one real thing inside the box: a tool, a book, a winter coat, a piece of equipment.

1. Tap Add item on the onboarding banner — or open the Items page and tap New item.
2. Give it a title. Just the title is required; everything else is optional.
3. Tap 📷 Take Photo to take a photo of the item right now, or 📁 Choose Files to upload one from your gallery.
4. (Optional) Add the brand, model, category, condition, and purchase date.
5. (Optional, encrypted) Add the serial number and purchase price. These are encrypted and only visible to you.
6. From the In box dropdown, pick the box you just created.
7. Save.

You'll be redirected to the item's view page. The onboarding banner on the dashboard now shows all three steps as ✓ done — it'll disappear from your view automatically.

5. Print and stick the QR sticker

Open the box's detail page. Tap Print label. Stick the printed sticker on the physical box.

For more on what to print and the different sticker formats, see Printing labels and QR centre labels.

6. Scan it

Use the in-app scanner by tapping Scan in the navigation, or just point your phone's regular camera at the sticker. Either way you'll land on the box's page with all the items inside it.

That's it — you've completed the cycle: location → box → item → print → stick → scan.

What next

• Repeat for the rest of the room.
• When you create more boxes at the same location, they'll all show up on the location's detail page.
• See Find a box for the reverse-search feature: pointing your camera at a shelf to spot which sticker is the box you're looking for.
• See Bulk-moving items between boxes when you're reorganizing.