Guide:Inventory management

Keeping your inventory organized will help you maximize your mileage from exploring in Terraria, as your goal is to fill your inventory with as many valuable items as you can before heading home. In general, the key is to strike a balance between the items you need for exploration, and the free spaces you have in your inventory for more loot.

Of equal importance towards inventory management when out exploring is the ability to tell valuable loot apart from junk. While some loot objectives are obvious (such as Golden Keys in the Dungeon, or Crystal Shards and Souls of Light in the Underground Hallow), keep your eye out for unexpected valuable items. If, for example, you come across a valuable Bomb Statue but your inventory is full, you must decide what to throw out in order to make room for it.

The following guidelines will help you decide what to bring and what to keep on your adventure.

Mandatory items
These items must be in your inventory in some form or another if you plan to do any serious exploration. Without them, many important activities become extremely inefficient, if not impossible.

Weapons
Weapons are a player's primary means of self-defense, and in order to cover as many different combat situations as possible, it is recommended to carry a variety of weapons in your hotbar. Later in the game, it is recommend to specialize towards one of the four primary damage types (melee, ranged, magic, and summoning). If possible, use weapons that can attack from a distance and weapons that can pierce or otherwise damage multiple enemies. Summoning weapons can contribute to any character's damage output, even without a summoning-dedicated armor set.

To reduce inventory clutter, it is important to recognize when to retire certain weapons. For example, the Snowball Cannon is a phenomenal weapon in the early stages of the game, but it will see little use after you obtain a Tendon Bow or Demon Bow.

Ammunition
It goes without saying that ranged weapons are useless without ammunition to feed them with, so if using ranged weapons, be sure to bring enough ammo to last for your entire trip.

Pickaxe
Pickaxes are a player's primary means of interacting with the environment, and Terraria ensures that you have access to a pickaxe from the very beginning of the game. You only need one pickaxe in your inventory, and it will generally be the one with the highest Pickaxe power you have access to, though there are several viable exceptions that trade away pickaxe power for mining speed (such as the Bone Pickaxe and Shroomite Digging Claw).

Lighting
Lighting usually comes in the form of Torches. Glowsticks, Light Pets, Shine Potions, and the Mining Helmet (earlygame) can be used as substitutes, but unlike Torches, they will not permanently illuminate an area. Stacks of Wood and Gel can be carried to craft Torches on demand. Aside from providing lighting, Torches can be used to craft Campfires.

Recommended items
It is highly recommended to carry these items if you have them.

Blocks
Aside from modifying the terrain, blocks are useful for blocking the paths of enemies, or even trapping them. All blocks are equally useful for this purpose, but dirt, stone, and mud are likely to be the most plentiful. Bring a large stack.

Platforms
Platforms can be used to quickly construct boss arenas, and are useful for climbing to high places early in the game when mobility is still low. A stack of Wood or Ice Blocks can be crafted into platforms by hand, and extra platforms can be crafted back into blocks, so it is not strictly necessary to dedicate an inventory space to platforms.

Bombs
Bombs, especially when crafted into Sticky Bombs, are a relatively plentiful and speedy (albeit messy) way to excavate large areas. In the earlygame, they can also be used to bypass certain pickaxe power requirements. Most importantly, Bombs can be used to mine Crimstone/Ebonstone and Meteorite ore.

Grappling hook
On the version, Grappling Hooks have their own equipment slot, meaning that they do not interfere with inventory management. On other platforms, the mobility that hooks provide can be used to escape dangerous situations and navigate the terrain, making them well worth the single inventory space that they take up. There is no need to place them in the hotbar.

Trap detection
Any mechanism, most commonly a Dart Trap or Pressure Plate, can be selected in the hotbar to highlight naturally-generated wiring mechanisms. However, constantly highlighting natural traps this way is labor-intensive; the Mechanical Lens or Grand Design offer a more permanent solution by allowing you to toggle the visibility of wires on and off at will. The latter also allows you to disarm said traps with little effort.

Informational accessories
Informational Accessories provide extra information that can be useful during exploration, but the most valuable ones are the Platinum/Gold Watch, Lifeform Analyzer, and Metal Detector, along with the Mechanical Lens (listed above).
 * Knowing the time allows you to plan for events such as boss fights.
 * Rare creatures often have valuable drops. Some rare creatures are also highly dangerous, and the Lifeform Analyzer provides advance warning of their presence.
 * The Metal Detector alerts you to the presence of loot chests, Life Crystals, and Life Fruits. It is slightly less useful if you are using Spelunker Potions.

Recall
The Magic Mirror, Ice Mirror, Cell Phone, or a Recall Potion will instantly return you to your spawn point. Recall Potions work with no delay, making them more suited for Hardcore or Mediumcore characters who need to quickly escape a nasty situation. Softcore characters generally don't need to carry the Magic Mirror in the hotbar, however, and can simply activate it from the inventory screen when needed.

Healing potions
Healing potions are one of the main methods of restoring health in dangerous situations and should be used frequently, as they are obtained in plentiful supply from bosses and naturally-generated Chests. If you have lost more health than your best healing potion would heal for, use one. They can be activated from the inventory with a hotkey.

Piggy Bank
A Piggy Bank, or ideally a Money Trough, acts as a personalized, highly portable storage box. Piggy Banks can only be placed on flat surfaces like a Workbench or Platforms, but the Money Trough can be summoned anywhere. It is recommended to use the Piggy Bank to store money and items that you use regularly but infrequently, such as Fishing Rods. A Safe can provide extra storage should you need it, and can itself be stored in the Piggy Bank, freeing an additional space. If not using the Money Trough, be sure to pick up your storage items after you are done.

Buff potions
Spelunker Potions are incredibly useful during exploration, highlighting valuable items on the screen. Hunter Potions highlight threats and help you to avoid being taken by surprise, especially by Worms. Obsidian Skin Potions are useful when approaching the lower levels of the Caverns and the Underworld, as they allow you to ignore lava. Standard buff potions for combat can also be considered, but usually those are best saved for boss battles and invasion events.

Others
Whether you wish to bring the following items with you is largely up to personal preference.

Bug Net
The Bug Net is useful for catching Critters, including those usable as Bait. Bait is particularly plentiful in the Jungle, and aside from that, you will need a Bug Net to catch Truffle Worms. When at your base, it is still useful to have the Bug Net so you can catch critters to sell for pocket change, which adds up over time.

Staff of Regrowth
The Staff of Regrowth is very useful if you find a fully-grown, non-blooming herb underground and wish to extract seeds from it.

Hamaxe
Hamaxes combine the functions of Hammers and Axes, and while neither is really mandatory for exploration and caving, hammering can be used to create one-way barriers and perform several other tricks with sloped blocks (see Hoik). Axes can be used to replenish wood supplies in the Underground Jungle, the only biome in which trees will grow underground. The Meteor Hamaxe is the first Hamaxe that players will gain access to, and is fast enough for most purposes while coming with a low opportunity cost. Obtaining higher-tier Hamaxes is a relatively low priority.

Rope
Ropes are handy for lining your hellevator(s) and for climbing to high places early-game, but their usefulness is diminished after you gain access to Hooks.

Water Candles
When farming enemies for their drops, placing a Water Candle nearby will boost their spawn rate.

Extra armor
Apart from the armor equipped in your armor slots, there is some merit to carrying around extra armor sets in the inventory. Several sets, notably Crimson and Palladium armor as well as the individual pieces Squire's Great Helm and Valhalla Knight's Breastplate provide a sizable regeneration bonus and are useful for healing outside of combat. Spectre armor is another useful armor switch as it provides rapid burst healing.

Things to get rid of

 * Banners are worth relatively little and clutter the inventory. It is a good habit to place them down nearby as soon as you obtain them.
 * Common blocks can be trashed if they are not in a large enough stack to be useful for building.
 * Herbs can usually be trashed on the spot, as it is far more efficient to farm them at your base. Their respective seeds only need to be obtained once if you are planning to set up a garden.
 * Dye ingredients are worth a decent amount of money, but can easily be trashed to make room for something else.
 * Gems, especially lower-tier gems, are not especially useful. Rubies can be used to craft Slime Crowns, and the Gem staves and Robes crafted from Rubies and Diamonds are decent in Pre-Hardmode, but aside from those, most gems can be tossed away with no regrets, especially if you already have a Grappling Hook.
 * Any item that doesn't seem immediately useful and does not have "material" listed in its tooltip can be safely thrown away. Silt and Slush are exceptions, as they can provide valuable items when fed to an Extractinator.

Other tips

 * After looting an underground Chest, you can take the chest with you for extra storage at your base. This has the added benefit of allowing the Metal Detector to display something other than "Chest detected nearby!"
 * If you don't have the heart to throw away some items, you can deposit them into naturally-generated Chests and come back for them later.
 * If you encounter a Skeleton Merchant, you can sell your accumulated junk items to him rather than throwing them away.
 * Renaming your chests to match the types of items they store, for example "Ores and Bars", "Potions", "Weapons", etc. will make finding your items much easier.
 * 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.
 * Extra accessories that you pick up on your adventures can be stored in your Social Slots, though they may affect your appearance.