📚 Collection Organizer
Enter your game count, average box width, and shelf size, and get the shelves and storage units you actually need — plus how much spare room is left over.
Planning shelf space before you buy
A board game collection grows in a very literal, physical way — every new box needs actual linear shelf space, measured spine to spine. Multiplying your game count by an average box width gives the total width your collection needs, and dividing that by your shelf width tells you how many shelves that becomes once you round up to a whole number.
From there, dividing by how many shelves each storage unit holds gives a real, buyable number of units, and the small remainder — the spare capacity — is exactly how much slack you have before you need another shelf.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I measure my average box width?
Measure the spine (the narrow edge that faces out on a shelf) of a handful of representative boxes and average them. Most mid-size Euro-game boxes run roughly 5–8cm; larger boxes with big boards or heavy components run wider, and slim card-game boxes run narrower.
What if my collection has a few oversized boxes?
Treat those separately — a single large box (a sprawling dungeon-crawler or a big miniatures game, say) can throw off an average built mostly from mid-size boxes. Measure the outliers on their own and add their width to the total by hand.
Why does it round up to whole shelves and units?
Shelves and storage units come in fixed sizes — you can't buy 2.3 shelves. Rounding up to the next whole shelf (and the next whole storage unit) gives you a real, buyable number, with the spare-capacity figure showing exactly how much slack that extra space leaves you.
Should I plan for collection growth?
It's worth entering a slightly higher game count than you currently own if you expect to keep buying, so the spare capacity figure doubles as headroom rather than needing a re-calculation every time a new game arrives.
A planning estimate — measure your bulkiest and most awkward boxes separately for the most accurate total.