Home Inventory

What is Home Inventory

Home Inventory is a comprehensive application for macOS developed by Binary Formations, LLC. Its main purpose is to help users create a detailed catalog of their personal belongings. This is useful for insurance purposes, estate planning, and general home organization. Users can document items with photos, receipts, serial numbers, purchase dates, and values. The software also includes features for managing home maintenance schedules and tracking home improvement projects. While Home Inventory was a popular tool for many years and even an Apple Mac App Store Editors’ Choice, it is no longer available for new purchases. The developer, Binary Formations, has since released a new, redesigned application called 'Under My Roof' to replace it, but continues to offer support for existing Home Inventory users.

Home Inventory Features

Home Inventory provides a robust set of features for detailed asset management:

• Detailed Item Cataloging: Store extensive information for each item, including make, model, serial number, purchase price, date, and current value. You can attach unlimited photos, receipts, and other digital documents.
• Insurance Policy Management: Track details of your homeowners or renters insurance policies. The app helps you perform a coverage analysis to see if you are over or under-insured based on the value of your inventoried items.
• Robust Reporting: Generate various types of reports, such as a complete inventory list for insurance claims, a moving checklist, warranty expiration reports, and estate planning reports.
• Home Management: Beyond items, you can store information about your home itself. Track repairs, improvements, property assessments, and create a schedule for regular maintenance tasks.
• Estate Planning: Assign specific items to heirs within the application. This makes it simple to generate a report that can be included with your will.
• Mobile Helper Apps: Use the free companion iOS apps, 'Home Inventory Remote Entry' and 'Home Inventory Mobile Backup', to add items while away from your Mac or to carry a backup of your inventory on your iPhone or iPad.
• Data Backup and Security: Your data is stored locally on your Mac. The application supports automatic backups to a location of your choice, including cloud-synced folders like Dropbox or iCloud Drive, for safekeeping.
• Flexible Data Entry: Add items by dragging and dropping files, scanning barcodes with the mobile app, or importing data from a CSV file.

Home Inventory Pricing Plans

Home Inventory is no longer available for sale to new customers. When it was available, it was sold as a one-time purchase through the Mac App Store and the developer's website. This single purchase provided a lifetime license for the software on macOS. There were no subscription tiers; all features were included in the single version of the application.

Home Inventory Free Plan

The main Home Inventory application for Mac did not have a free plan. It was a paid software product. However, the developer provided two free helper applications for iOS: Home Inventory Remote Entry and Home Inventory Mobile Backup. These apps were free to download and were designed to work with the paid Mac application, allowing users to add items remotely and carry their inventory data on their mobile devices.

How to use Home Inventory

For existing users, the workflow for Home Inventory is straightforward:

1. Create an Inventory File: Open the application on your Mac and start a new inventory file. You can create separate files for different properties.
2. Define Locations: Begin by adding the locations in your home, such as 'Living Room', 'Kitchen', or 'Master Bedroom'.
3. Add Items: Go through each room and add your belongings. For each item, fill in as much detail as possible: name, manufacturer, model, serial number, purchase date, and price.
4. Attach Media: Take photos of your items and attach them. You can also scan or drag-and-drop digital copies of receipts and warranty documents.
5. Use the Mobile App: To speed up the process, install 'Home Inventory Remote Entry' on your iPhone. You can then walk around your house, take pictures, and enter basic item details, which then sync to the Mac app over WiFi.
6. Enter Policy Details: Go to the 'Policy' section to enter your insurance information. This allows the app to analyze your coverage.
7. Generate Reports: When needed, use the 'Reports' feature to create a PDF for your insurance agent, for moving, or for your estate planning records.

Pros and Cons of Home Inventory

Pros:

• Comprehensive Features: Offers very detailed fields for cataloging items, warranties, and maintenance.
• One-Time Purchase Model: Users who bought it own the software without recurring subscription fees.
• Local Data Storage: All data is stored on your own computer, offering better privacy compared to cloud-based services.
• Powerful Reporting: The ability to generate detailed, customized reports is a significant advantage for insurance claims.
• Free Companion Apps: The iOS helper apps made the data entry process much more efficient.

Cons:

• No Longer For Sale: New users cannot purchase the software.
• Mac Only: The application is exclusive to the macOS platform.
• Outdated Interface: The design may feel dated compared to modern, cloud-native applications.
• Limited Cloud Sync: While backups can be stored in the cloud, it does not offer real-time, multi-device syncing like a true SaaS product.

Home Inventory Integrations

Home Inventory offers a few key integrations with the Apple ecosystem:

• Calendar and Reminders: Maintenance schedules created within Home Inventory can be synced directly to Apple's Calendar or Reminders apps on your Mac.
• Dropbox and iCloud Drive: The application can be configured to automatically back up your inventory file to a cloud-synced folder like Dropbox or iCloud Drive, ensuring your data is safe off-site.

Home Inventory Alternatives

Since Home Inventory is no longer sold, users may consider these alternatives:

1. Under My Roof: This is the official successor to Home Inventory from the same developer, Binary Formations. It features a modern design and is available as a subscription.
2. Sortly: A popular, cloud-based inventory management app available on web, iOS, and Android. It is very visual and easy to use, suitable for both personal and small business inventory.
3. MyStuff2 Pro: A highly flexible database app for iOS and macOS that can be customized to catalog almost any type of collection, including home inventory.
4. Nest Egg: An inventory application for iOS and Mac that helps users catalog items, scan barcodes, and track warranty and return information.

Home Inventory API

Home Inventory does not provide a public API for developers. It is a self-contained desktop application designed for end-users, and there are no developer tools or API access available for third-party integrations.

Home Inventory Affiliate Program

As Home Inventory is no longer available for purchase, there is no active affiliate or partner program for the product. The developer does not offer commissions for promoting this legacy software.