Call it mental illness, call it human nature, call it instinct: human beings have an innate desire to hoard things. Sometimes, that hoarding impulse gets out of control, while other times this desire takes the form of a perfect innocent stamp collection. Chances are, you collect something. If you need help managing that collection and keeping track of what you own, there’s a helpful app called Booxter Lite.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Booxter Lite is a collection organization and management app that is targeted towards people who have large collection of books, movies, comics, or music.

Pros

• Helps you stay organized
• Four main library types: books, movies, comics, and music
• There’s a free iOS companion app that will scan barcodes into Booxter, or let you export your Mac lists to your iPhone
• View your collection by list mode, by tags, or by filters
• Search tons of different online databases to add items, from ComicsBookDB to Amazon to the Library of Congress
• Print out labels to affix to items in your collection
• Supports multiple languages
• Built-in “game” quizzes you on your collection
• Integrates with your address book, allowing you to use Booxter Lite as a “lending library” reference

Cons

• Booxter Lite has a limit of 30 items per library: to remove this, you must pay $29.99 to upgrade to the full version
• Comic book barcode scanning is not currently supported

Discussion

Booxter Lite is targeted towards collectors of music, movies, books, or comic books. We’ve all been there: you’re in a store, and you’re trying to remember if you already own a certain movie…and if so, on which format. Those kinds of organizational queries will be gone in a flash if you use this Mac App and its associated iPhone app.

Adding new items to a list is pretty simple…assuming you have the right info. If you’re adding a book, for example, you need to know the ISBN or the LCCN number–you can’t just search by author or title. Once the item has been added to you list, you can make a note of its location (upstairs bookshelf, storage unit, etc.) as well as the person you lent the item to and on what date. You can also rate the material, add notes, or write down the price you paid to obtain the item and where you got it from.

However, once your collection is over 30 items, you’ll need to upgrade ($30), or find another free app solution. If you plan to only collect a small number of first edition books, or start a collection of White albums in various conditions, this would be a good app for the life of your collection. Larger collections, however, will soon run afoul of the 30 item limit. Bear that in mind before getting started with Booxter Lite.

Conclusion and download link

While this app is only limited to 30 items per library, Booxter Lite is a good way to preview the full features that the full version provides. Still $29.99 is awfully steep for a service that you could easily replace with an Excel spreadsheet. Sticker shock aside, however, Booxter Lite provides a great way to search a small collection and stay organized.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 2.7.7

Supported OS: OS X 10.6.6 or later

Download size: 5.4 MB

Booxter Lite on Mac App Store