Our Verdict
You may think that since you ’ve fuck off home insurance , you ’re covered in case of theft , flaming , or other catastrophe . But unless you ’ve got a comprehensive track record of your home ’s capacity , file an insurance call will be an usage in defeat . Compartmentsaims to make such an inventory painless — or at least a whole lot easier .
compartment has two canonical case of data : locations and item . item are specific affair you want to catalog . locating are , as you might guess , locations in your home or on your prop where items reside . Click New Location to create a Modern location and delegate it a type : general , room , dresser , automobile , box , building , electronic computer , and so on . While types and location might seem to overlap , fix types give you an additional layer of classification , which can be useful if , for example , a room is too large-minded a category for your belongings .
Once you ’ve created a location , it ’s available when creating a new point record . fall into place New Item , and you may enter a slew of important information about the item : its name , eccentric ( base on a list of common family ) , locating , date acquired , warranty distance , price , make and simulation , and serial number . you’re able to also use the Notes field to salt away any additional info you desire to tail , and you’re able to assign tags — additional categories or labels , useful for search — to the item , bond a file ( such as a scanned or e - mail receipt ) to the record , and add together an range of a function of the item . For this last bit of data , you’re able to either drag an existing digital pic into the record or , if your computer has a photographic camera , take a photo of the point right then and there ; you’re able to even crop your exposure from within compartment .
A outstanding feature film is the Quick Add boxful . If you ’ve got a leaning of item residing in the same localisation , just click the Quick Add button , choose the locating , and then type or glue all the point at once , one item per melody — Compartments will mechanically make a unexampled record for each item . regrettably , you ca n’t set other bits of data for these new records from within the Quick Add window . There is a Quick Apply characteristic that have you select multiple be record and then apply a specific kind or specific tags , or move all those items to a finical positioning , but it would be useful if you could easily , say , assign the same purchase date to multiple item .
Once you ’ve embark token information , you may view your items either all at once or by location , screen alphabetically , by type , or ( in the all - items sight ) by placement . Compartments also let you create smart collections , which , similar to smart leaflet in Mail and fresh playlists in iTunes , are live - update groups of item establish on name , rag , or kind . And , of course , you’re able to look for lookup your database based on name , tag , or kind — Compartments even lets you produce a voguish collection based on the results of a search .
New in the latest interpretation of Compartments are creature for cross product warranties . Based on the warranty - length information you provide when you create an particular record , Compartments exhibit the escort that token ’s warranty expires . But just as utile is the WarrantyGuard scene , which is essentially a built - in smart collection that lets you quickly see all item with warrant that croak within the next calendar month .
Finally , Compartments ’s Reports feature give rise by - location inventory reports that include a elaborate list of all detail in each locating , along with summaries of the numeral and full economic value of items in each localisation .
Compartments has a few limitations I discovered once I start doing some serious inventorying . The one I notice like a shot was an apparent inability to add new item and placement types . For instance , closetisn’t an useable location type , andclothingisn’t an available detail case , but there ’s no way to tally either . I was also frustrated that I could n’t give the Date develop field of battle blank when cataloging existing items for which I could n’t even embark a guesswork as to the purchase date . And it would be majuscule if , likeWarranty Hero , Compartments could integrate with iCal to prompt you when an detail ’s warranty is about to expire .
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[ Dan Frakes is a Macworld senior editor in chief . ]
