Scan Instead of Search: Record Your Rooms Once, Find Things in Seconds

Published by Adrian Vogel · Reading time: approx. 12 minutes · Last updated: October 2026

In short:

• In the end, the search shows every recorded thing and where it is.
• You need your phone, a thick marker and a few labels.
• One room takes a few minutes. Cupboards and boxes take longer.
• OWNAMIC tracks nothing. It only knows the place you set.

How to begin with one big walk-through is told in the field report One afternoon. 500 possessions.. This article has a different goal: you want to stop searching for things and start looking them up.

What you should know

How much time people spend searching is hardly researched. I found no independent, reliable study on it. The figure you read most often comes from a survey from 2017. The US company Pixie paid for it. Pixie itself sells a product for finding things. According to that survey, the average American spends about 2.5 days a year looking for misplaced items. Most often they look for the TV remote, the phone and keys. Treat the figure as a hint, not a measurement. You know from your own life that searching costs time.

We often look in the wrong place. The psychologist Amelia Hunt of the University of Aberdeen studies how we search with our eyes. Her experiments show a pattern. Many people keep looking at one spot for a long time. Yet a quick glance would be enough to see that the thing is not there. Her example is keys on an empty desk. So searching is not only about memory. It is also about how you go about it.

That is why a list with places helps. If you can look up where something is, you do not have to guess. This matters most for things you rarely need. Think of Christmas decorations, the camping stove, the spare charging cable or the bolts for the winter tyres. Those are exactly the things that sit in boxes, cupboards and the cellar.

A scan is not a tracking device. OWNAMIC stores what you show it and where you file it. It does not track objects. For the list to stay right, you need two habits. First, record things properly once. Second, when you move something at home, move it in the app too. This guide shows both.

Preparation: decide the order (5 minutes)

Think about where you search most often. For most people that is the cellar, the storage room, the attic, the garage and the hallway cupboards. Start there. Living room and kitchen come later. Most things there are in plain sight.

Have a thick marker and a few labels ready. Boxes get a number in a moment. If you have a printer, you can use QR stickers later. More on that in step 4.

Step 1: Set up your home as rooms

The rooms are the frame everything hangs on. Every search result will later show its way through this frame. OWNAMIC calls this way the path.

1. Tap Plus and choose Template.
2. Choose the "Home" template. It sets up your home with living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, garage and garden.
3. Under "What is contained?", use Add Sub-Object to add what is missing: cellar, attic, storage room, hallway, children's room.

You can also start from the inventory list:

1. On your start page, open the Inventory list under More.
2. Switch to the Rooms view.
3. If there are no rooms yet, the page offers Create structure from a template.

Step 2: Film every room

The fastest way to record a room is Video capture. Start from inside the room itself. Then the finds land in the right place straight away:

1. Open the room, for example via Your rooms on your start page.
2. Tap To the object.
3. Tap Add Object and then Photo/Video.
4. In the camera, set the Capture mode to Video. The screen now reads "Scan a room on video".

How to record:

• One room per video. OWNAMIC analyses the first 30 seconds. It takes up to 24 single frames from them.
• Pan slowly and pause briefly. A blurred frame is a lost frame.
• Turn the light on before you film. On a phone, Light also switches on the torch.
• Film at the height of the things, not from above.

Then check the finds. Correct what is wrong straight away. Delete duplicates.

Did you not start from the room? Then file the finds before saving:

1. Tap Tap to choose a collection at the top.
2. Find the room under Search or create a collection. Or tap Let OWNY suggest. Then OWNY proposes a place.
3. Accept the proposal with Yes, file it. Turn it down with Sort it myself.

OWNY never tidies anything away in secret.

Step 3: Cupboards and drawers as a photo series

A video shows what stands in a room. It does not show what is behind doors. So you record each cupboard and each drawer on its own:

1. Open the door or pull out the drawer.
2. In Photo mode, take several pictures. Holding the shutter down takes a series. Alternatively, choose Photo series under All ways to capture: up to five pictures, many objects.
3. OWNY checks by itself what the photos show: one object from several sides or Several objects. You can also set it yourself.

One picture per shelf is more precise than one of the whole cupboard. Lay small things out next to each other rather than on top of each other. OWNY may count things that overlap as one object. Or it may miss them.

Furniture as a container. If OWNY recognises the cupboard itself as an object, it can have contents too. On a computer, you simply drag things onto it in the inventory list: "Drag onto an object to put it inside".

Step 4: Boxes and containers as objects with contents

Boxes are where most searching happens. In OWNAMIC every box becomes a collection of its own. The collection lies in a room and holds the contents of the box.

1. Open the room where the box is, for example the cellar.
2. Tap Add Object and then Collection.
3. Enter a name that is also written on the box, such as "Box 3 – Christmas decorations". The room is already filled in under Part of (optional).
4. Tap Create Collection.
5. OWNAMIC asks what you would like to do next. Choose Add objects to this collection.
6. Spread the contents out on the floor or a table. Record them as a photo series. The finds go straight into the box.
7. Write the number on the box in large letters, on at least two sides.

A QR code on the box. A QR code is a small square of dots that a phone camera can read. On each box's object page you will find the card Print & attach QR. Download QR Code gives you the code as an image. If you scan it with your phone later, the box opens in OWNAMIC. You see everything inside it. This works for you and for people you share the box with. Strangers see nothing through it.

To print on labels, use the sticker sheet:

1. On the box, open Finder QR.
2. Choose Print a sticker sheet. The sheet fits common A4 label sheets.
3. With Print the object's name under the code, the name appears right below it.
4. Create stickers creates the code.
5. Print prints it.

This is a finder code. If someone finds a lost box, they can send you a message through the code. If you scan your own code, you go straight to the box.

Step 5: Tags for what you search for

The search finds whatever is in the name, the tags or the description. Name matches come first. Then come tags, then description. OWNY writes the name and the description. Only you know how you search.

• While capturing: open Additional info, purchase date & tags. In Tags to add to all items, enter words that apply to every find. For example "camping" or "winter".
• Later: on the object page, add what is missing under Tags. For example "spare part" or "size 110".
• Your own word: you say "drill", but OWNY writes "cordless screwdriver"? Then add your word as a tag.

Step 6: Find things in seconds

Now comes the part you are doing all this for.

In the inventory list. Open the Inventory list and tap the Search inventory… field. The Results appear while you type. Below each name is the path, for example "My Home › Cellar › Box 3 – Christmas decorations". Tap a result and Lies in shows the whole way there. You can tap each step. The search field stays visible on a phone too.

Through the search in the bar. On a phone, tap Search at the bottom. On a computer, type into the Search objects... field at the top. This search also includes objects others share with you. It shows value and purchase price, but not the place. You see the place on the object page under Belongs to.

Browse by place. The inventory list has three views:

• Inventory shows the whole tree.
• Collections shows every collection and so every box.
• Rooms shows the rooms of your home.

Under Contains you see what lies in a room or a box.

Go back to the photos. Your recordings are under My Scans. Open a scan and you see the Original Capture Images. That way you can check what a shelf looked like when you recorded it.

Step 7: When things move

A list with places is only as good as its latest state. When something moves, updating it takes a few seconds.

One object. Open it in the inventory list and tap Move. Under Search for a destination, enter the new place, such as "Box 5". Tap Move here. On a computer you simply drag the object onto its new place.

Several objects. Tap Select, mark the things and choose Move to …. Should they go into a new box first? Then choose New collection and then Create & put in.

Reorganising across several places. With To tray you set objects aside for a moment. Then go to the destination and tap Drop here there. Until then everything stays where it is.

Made a mistake? Undo reverses the last step. On a computer, Ctrl + Z works too.

Filing loose objects. Do things in your inventory still have no place? Then Sort with OWNY helps. You find it on your start page under More → Loose objects. OWNY proposes a place for each object. You accept single proposals with Accept, all of them with Accept all. You turn them down with Dismiss. Each run costs two points of AI credit.

Common mistakes

• The whole house in one video. 30 seconds for a flat are only enough for a quick glance. One room per video.
• Boxes photographed from the outside. A closed cardboard box shows nothing. Open it, spread it out, record it.
• Names without numbers. There will soon be three "Cellar box" entries. Numbers on the box and the object keep the two together.
• Moving things without updating. You move a box but not in the app? Then you will be searching again next year.
• Everything at once. One room per evening is a good pace. The cellar first, because that is where most searching happens.

What OWNAMIC does not do here

• OWNAMIC does not locate objects. It knows the place you set. It does not know where something really is right now.
• The search compares text. It does not know synonyms, meaning other words for the same thing. If "drill" appears nowhere in the entry, it will not find the cordless screwdriver. The entry means name, tags and description.
• Something that only appears on a photo is not yet an object. The search finds objects, not picture contents.
• Recognition misses things. Small, hidden or overlapping items are more likely to be missing from a video. It is better to record important pieces on their own.
• A QR code does not prevent loss. It leads you to the entry. The finder code helps if someone finds the box and scans the code.

Video guides

In Help you will find short video guides:

• One shows how to capture your first objects.
• Another shows how finds get their place. It also shows how "Sort with OWNY" files loose objects.
• A third shows what happens when OWNY is unsure and asks back.

You can also open the help straight from the inventory list via Help & Explain.

Checklist to take with you

• Order decided: first the places where you search most often
• "Home" template set up, cellar, attic and storage room added
• Every room recorded by video capture, started from inside the room
• Cupboards and drawers recorded shelf by shelf as a photo series
• Every box created as a collection in the right room and numbered
• Box contents spread out and recorded into the box as a photo series
• QR code or sticker sheet printed for the boxes
• Your own search words added as tags
• Search in the inventory list tried, path under "Lies in" checked
• Habit set: whatever moves is moved in the app straight away

Read on: Getting organised · Recording your home room by room · A Home Contents Inventory for Your Insurer: Step by Step · One afternoon. 500 possessions.

Sources

• Pixie: Lost and Found Survey (company survey, USA, 2017), press release on PR Newswire: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lost-and-found-the-average-american-spends-25-days-each-year-looking-for-lost-items-collectively-costing-us-households-27-billion-annually-in-replacement-costs-300449305.html
• Amelia Hunt (University of Aberdeen) for the World Economic Forum: This is why you search for your keys on an empty desk (2017): https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/02/this-why-you-search-for-your-keys-on-an-empty-desk/
• UK Data Service: Role of Familiarity and Experience in the Implementation of Efficient Visual Search Strategies, 2019–2023 (research project, University of Aberdeen): https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/857409/

The Pixie figure is based on a survey commissioned by a vendor and is not an official or scientific measurement.