📦 Tool

Moving Box Inventory & Label Maker

Number the box, list what went in it, print a label that says which room it belongs to on the other end. Then, on the day, tick each one from packed to unpacked so you know whether box 34 is genuinely missing or just still in the van. Everything stays on this device: no account, no login, nothing sent anywhere.

No boxes yet — add the first one above. The box number fills in automatically.

One habit worth keeping: put the number on the box, keep the contents in the list. A box labelled "office — laptop, camera, passports" tells the wrong person exactly which one to take. A box labelled "34 — Office" tells the right person exactly where to put it, and this page tells you what's in it.

Why numbering beats describing

The instinct is to write contents on the side of the box, and it fails for three reasons: you run out of marker space, you pack four more things after writing it, and you end up reading eleven boxes to find the kettle. A number takes two seconds, never becomes inaccurate, and points at a list you can search.

The destination room matters more than the origin. Whoever carries the box — you at hour nine, a friend, a mover — is deciding which door to walk through, and "kitchen" answers that. "Old kitchen" does not, especially if the new place has the kitchen where the old one had a bedroom.

Open-first boxes are the ones that save the evening

Kettle, mugs, phone chargers, toilet roll, a knife, bedding, medication, the shower curtain. Mark two or three boxes as open-first, load them last so they come off the van first, and the first night stops being an archaeology exercise. The label sheet prints those with a flag so they're identifiable across a room.

Moving means budgeting too — the Trip Budget Calculator handles the travel side, and the 50/30/20 Budget Calculator helps rebalance once the deposit and first month land at once. Renting out what you're not taking? Start with What Can I Rent Out? And once the boxes are unpacked, the Home Inventory for Insurance turns the same list into a claim-ready record.

Created by and property of gentletools.com · 2026

Frequently asked questions

How should I label moving boxes?

Number every box and write the destination room, not the room it came from — that is the only thing the person carrying it needs to know. Keep the contents list off the box itself and in a numbered inventory, so a stranger glancing at a box in a van cannot read that it holds a laptop.

Can I print labels for the boxes?

Yes. The label sheet prints four large labels per page with the box number, destination room and any fragile or open-first flags. Print on plain paper and tape them on, or use adhesive sheets.