Packle Usage Guide

Packle is an inventory tool that lets you organize physical things the way they actually live — items inside containers inside other containers. Add photos, scan barcodes, attach tasks, print labels, and find anything later. Here's how everything fits together.

Getting started

You can try Packle without an account: open the app and you're already in guest mode. Everything you create lives on your device. When you sign up, your guest data migrates into your account so nothing is lost.

To add your first item, hit the "+" button on the items screen. Give it a name. That's enough — you can fill in details later.

The hierarchy

Every item in Packle is either a regular item or a container. Containers hold other items, and they can nest as deep as you need: a bin inside a shelf inside a closet inside a room.

Mark something as a container with the toggle in the item editor. Tap a container to drill into it; the breadcrumb at the top tells you where you are. Drag items to reorder them within a container.

Tasks

Tasks attach to items. Some examples: "buy replacement filter", "return to Sarah", "ship to warehouse". Add a task when you create an item, or any time after.

The Tasks tab shows all open tasks across your inventory, grouped into pending and completed. Check off tasks inline; click through to the parent item if you need context.

Images

Each item can have multiple images. The first one becomes the primary image shown on the item card; you can change which one is primary. Images are resized client-side before upload for speed, and the server generates square AVIF crops at three sizes for responsive display.

Item links

Sometimes items relate to each other in ways the container hierarchy doesn't capture: "this remote belongs to that TV", "this cable goes with that monitor". Link them and add an optional note; the link appears on both items.

Barcode scanning

Open the Scan tab and point your camera at a barcode or QR code. Packle decodes UPC-A, EAN-13, EAN-8, ISBN, and most other common formats. If the code is already linked to one of your items, you'll jump straight to it. If it's a new product, Packle looks it up — first in a local database, then in Open Food Facts, OpenLibrary, and other open product APIs — so you can add it with a name and image already filled in.

Labels

Queue items for label printing from any item card, or print one-offs from the Quick Print tab. Pick a template — small, medium, or large Avery sheet — choose where on a partially used sheet to start, and print (or save as PDF) straight from the browser. Each label carries the item's name, optional notes or a write-on line, its location path, and a QR code that resolves to packle://<item-id>; scanning the label opens the item directly.

Search

Global search at /search spans items and tasks. Filter by container, date range, or tag. Quick text search is in the header.

Sync modes

Each item has a sync mode:

Cloud — synced across all your devices through the server. The default.
Local — kept only on the current device. Good for sensitive lists or device-specific notes.
Inherit — uses the parent container's sync mode. Set a container to "local" and every item inside it inherits that.

Offline & PWA

Packle is a Progressive Web App: install it from your browser to get an app icon and full-screen view. Everything you do offline is queued locally; when you're back online the queue drains and any conflicts surface for you to resolve.

Account & billing

Free accounts get a generous storage and item-count quota. Paid plans (monthly, annual, or one-time lifetime) lift those quotas and add advanced features. Manage your plan at /billing; current usage is visible at /settings/storage.