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Inventory Management

Your inventory is the list of items in a household. Editors and admins can add, edit, and remove items; viewers can browse and search.

Adding items

Open Add Item from the inventory page. You can populate the form three ways:

  • Scan or enter a barcode — fetches product details from Open Food Facts.
  • Search by product name — find a product by name and click a suggestion to fill the form. See Barcode Scanning & Product Search.
  • Manual entry — type the details yourself.

Only name and quantity are required. Other fields — brand, description, unit, location, purchase/expiration dates, image, and notes — are optional. You can attach an image by uploading a file or pasting an image URL.

Multiple households

If you belong to more than one household, pick the target household at the top of the form before saving.

Editing and deleting

From any item card:

  • Edit (pencil) opens the item for changes — handy for updating quantities as you use things up.
  • Delete (trash) removes the item after a confirmation.

Clicking the body of a card opens a detail view with the full nutrition label, ingredients, and allergen warnings, where you can also edit or delete.

Searching, filtering, and sorting

On the inventory page you can:

  • Search by name with the search bar.
  • Filter by location using the location tabs (or All Items).
  • Sort by name, expiration date, date added, or quantity — click a sort field again to flip between ascending and descending.

Results are paginated when there are many items.

Expiration indicators

Items are color-coded by how close they are to expiring:

  • 🟢 Green — fresh (more than 7 days)
  • 🟡 Yellow — use soon (within 7 days)
  • 🟠 Orange — urgent (within 3 days)
  • 🔴 Red — expired or expiring today

Set expiration dates wherever you can — even rough estimates help reduce waste, and you'll see warnings as items age.

Allergens and recipes

  • Items are checked against your household's custom allergens and flagged with a warning when ingredients match.
  • What you have on hand drives recipe makeability — see Recipes & Mealie.