Guide:Inventory management

Keeping a clean and organized inventory plays a key role to your success in Terraria. Running back and forth between your home-base and current mining extension is unavoidable to new characters. Figuring out what to keep, what to store in chests and what to throw out along the way will reduce the number of trips, allowing for more digging time. As a general rule, when you leave your house you should always have 10 or more slots in your inventory free, which will allow you to pick up new items as you continue your adventure.

While you're in the middle of the earth, digging a new ore vein you just found, you realize that you have no room to pick it up. What can you do? There are several options:
 * Discard low-value, easily acquired blocks you don't need. Dirt Blocks, Snow Blocks, Mud Blocks, Ash Blocks, Ice Blocks and Stone Blocks (unless you want to build a house made of bricks) are usually not needed in the quantity that you get them. (On a PC, you can shift-click any item that isn't favorited to discard it. On console, the default button is the X / Y  button.)
 * Return to your home base and unload your current goods into chests and containers.
 * Create temporary containers to put things in, so that you can pick them up at a later time.



Make a plan when you go exploring. If you're going out to mine or farm a certain item, save slots for that item. More than one adventurer has left their home to dig for adamantite only to find his inventory cluttered with stuff that's fairly useful but not what they were looking for. The trouble is to know what to throw away and what to keep. Set a priority for items like this:
 * keep the item(s) you were setting out to farm (This should never be a throw away option; it's what you came to get.)
 * keep any rare drops (basically anything that drops from a mob that isn't the norm).
 * keep your Ores and Gems based on how much you've collected of the specific type. Throw away smallest stacks first if you find something rarer or find more of what you were looking for replace your low level ores with higher ones.

Those are just a few examples but it's really up to what you need. The important thing is to make sure you always have space to pick something up in case that rare item drops or you find something you absolutely need to pick up like a bomb statue! The important thing, regardless of how you prioritize, is to make sure your inventory is neat and manageable.

Below are categories to help sort out what to carry in your inventory.

Weapons
Don't let the fluffy unicorns and rainbows fool you, Terraria is a dangerous world. In order to mitigate that danger, it is advised to always carry a weapon that supports whatever play style you use (Melee, Ranged, Summoner or Mage).

Melee

 * A broadsword is a perfect melee weapon for the budding player. Broadswords allow you to take on multiple enemies attacking from one direction due to the arc of their auto swing. The easiest broadsword to obtain is the Wooden Sword. Players who like to get up close and personal may want to upgrade to a higher tier.
 * Boomerangs are slightly more advanced items. Although they deal melee damage, they can be used for fights that require both melee and range abilities. The easiest boomerang to find is the Wooden Boomerang, found in Chests on the Surface.

Ranged

 * Ranged weapons come with the complication of keeping suitable ammo stocked. Players who like to hit enemies before they can get in close should consider the availability of ammo when choosing a ranged weapon.
 * A bow is a great starting ranged weapon, as it is easy to obtain. Players choosing a bow may want to save their Fallen Stars for crafting Jester Arrows.

Magic

 * A Wand of Sparking is a great magic weapon for players in a new world if one can be found. The wand uses naturally regenerating mana to fire a magic projectile, and maximum mana can easily be expanded by gathering Fallen Stars at night.
 * The Water Bolt is also a lucky find in the upper dungeon for new players. It shoots a magic projectile that ricochets off of solid objects.

Pickaxe
Have you ever fallen into a hole and couldn't get out? Players should always keep a Pickaxe on them regardless of the situation. Pickaxes are necessary for mining blocks and resources. When leaving your base, you may not be looking to collect blocks, but coming across a vein of Platinum Ore without a pickaxe can cause unneeded frustration. Pickaxes are also useful for getting out of the aforementioned holes in the ground.

Grappling Hook
Moving upwards in Terraria, or in reality for that matter, isn't as easy as moving down, While a Pickaxe can help you get out of a hole, you may not want to destroy the blocks around you. A Grappling Hook has its own equipment slot. It is advised to acquire one as soon as possible and always keep it equipped.

Trap detection
Whether you're navigating the Dungeon or relaxing in your base, Traps and other Mechanisms are hazardous to your health. Acquiring the Grand Design and keeping it in your inventory is a great idea. The Grand Design has a feature to force the visibility of wires regardless of where it is in your inventory. This can help you avoid traps and the death that follows. The Grand Design also allows you to dismantle traps when actively used. If the Grand Design is unavailable, selecting Wire, a Wrench, a Trap, or a Pressure Plate in the hotbar will make all surrounding wires visible. If the Goblin Tinkerer hasn't been found, the Mechanical Lens has the same feature to force wire visibility. Unfortunately the Mechanical Lens cannot be used to dismantle traps, however, it can be equipped where the Grand Design cannot.

Spawn warp
Traveling from your home base to a new location is a necessary pain. Traveling back home again is not. Having a Magic Mirror, Ice Mirror, Cell Phone, or Recall Potion will get you back to your spawn point in the blink of an eye. A stack of Recall Potions is not necessary to keep on you, you only need one at any time. Storing your excess Recall Potions at your spawn point ensures that you can grab a new one when you arrive. This way, potions you collect in the field don't take up more than one inventory slot. Also getting one recall potion is better in Mediumcore mode as you don't lose your potions forever!

Armor

 * A great defense is a good offense... or something like that... More likely is a great defense will buy you the time you need to kill your enemies. Armor is your primary source of defense. Equipping armor at the earliest convenience may just keep you alive long enough to use that shiny Wooden Sword mentioned above.

Accessories

 * There are many different Accessories in Terraria, serving many different purposes. Accessories should be chosen based on the task at hand rather than a specific list to always use.


 * However, keeping a set of accessories geared towards combat on you is a good idea when building far from your spawn point. There are many Events that can occur randomly and getting caught unprepared isn't advised. Combat accessories should be those that increase your primary weapon choice's abilities. Don't bring a Papyrus Scarab to a knife fight...

Regenerative

 * The careful player may not have need of healing items, but accidents can happen. Keeping a handful of Lesser Healing Potions with you can help you recover lost health faster than barricading yourself somewhere to let natural regeneration take its sweet time. Players further along will have access to better Potions like Greater Healing Potions and Restoration Potions, swap these out at your discretion.

Hardmode

 * Not much changes on entering hardmode. Grappling hooks are useful for getting out of holes, but Wings are better. Getting your hands on a pair should be one of your main focuses at this point.


 * Assuming you didn't kill the Wall of Flesh using a wooden sword and a prayer, you should have upgraded all of your weapons and armor to better gear. Now you get to upgrade them more or you'll probably die.

Generally it's a good idea to keep a few things in your inventory that you'll collect all the time while wandering through the world of Terraria. A couple of those would include Fallen Star, Mushrooms, and Lens. That way those things will stack up over time and they aren't something that you have to think about having a lot of as you'll always collect them every time you wander around. They're also a fairly common item to come across and while common, they're hard to amass in large amounts so collecting them over the course of your play time is a good way to get large quantities rather than setting out to farm them specifically, which can be a bit boring. When your stack gets full, deposit the stack and leave one of that item in your inventory to represent that slot being for that item. If you have over 1 stack of Lens, Maximum Mana, and health potions such as Great, Greater or Lesser health potion you won't need to keep slots for these in your inventory. In Hardmode you should have met these requirements, so in Hardmode you also won't need to keep inventory slots for these.

Once you return home, you should have several containers waiting for you. A good idea is to separate items into categories, and to keep each category in separate chests. For example, keep weapons/accessories in one chest and ore/bars in another. Doing this will allow you to easily store newly acquired items of the same type by using the 'Quick Stack' command in the Storage Items. Having a chest to quickly put things into is a good idea as well, because sometimes you need to get to a friend quickly. In your main inventory you have a 'Quick Stack to All' option, which is very useful in dense storage rooms. Labelling chests also makes it easier to find what you need quickly, without having to remember where you put it.

Tips

 * Chests are important in sorting items. If you find a treasure chest, after looting it you can break it with a pickaxe and take it with you.
 * Rename your chests to match the types of items they store, for example "Ores and Bars", "Potions", "Weapons", etc. This can make finding your items much easier.
 * If you don't wish to clutter your world with many chests, you can create another world and place all of your chests in that world. Whenever you need a specific item, you can join that world and retrieve your items quickly.
 * Many common items are also used as Ammo, and can be stored in your Ammo slots. These include Gel, Fallen Stars, Sand, and as of 1.3, Bones, Wire and Bait.
 * If you need the extra space badly enough it may be worth it to place unequipped accessories in one of the accessory vanity slots though you may not like your look afterwards.
 * Once the Merchant spawns, buy a piggy bank and carry it with a stack of Platforms. Carry them to increase your available inventory, just place the bank on two platforms to access the extra slots - then pick them up and continue. You can increase your space further by getting a Safe, and even further with a Defender's Forge.
 * If you do end up losing your piggy bank and cannot find it you can buy a new one and retrieve items from the lost one. This also works with a safe too.
 * It can be convenient to keep your piggy bank and wooden table inside your safe. That frees two main inventory slots, and the safe can be quickly placed nearly anywhere for fast access to specialty items like diving gear. The piggy bank can be pulled out for cargo space when necessary.
 * Its a good idea to keep stacks of certain essential, or valuable but common, items in your piggy bank. For example, your Coins, Gems, Torches, and summoning statues.


 * When a Blood moon occurs, blood zombies and dripplers will spawn. These have a chance to drop a money trough. This item, when used, will summon a flying piggy bank allowing you to access your piggy bank anywhere without needing to place one down. This not only frees another slot since you don't have to carry platforms, but you don't have to remember to pick it back up when you are done. They can be summoned with Statues, too, but the drop rate is lower than the naturally-spawned ones.