Inventory

The Inventory in ARK: Survival Evolved is the survivor's ability hold all sorts of different items. The inventory is accessed by pressing I by default. Many materials are held in stacks of one hundred while armor and tools cannot be stacked. Creatures and buildings can also have an inventory.

Hotkeys

Action	Default Key	Result
Drop Item	O	Item is dropped from the inventory currently being accessed to the ground.
Transfer Stack	T	The stack you hover over is transferred from one inventory currently being accessed to the other.
Transfer Half-Stack	⇧ Shift+T	Half of the stack you hover over is transferred from one inventory currently being accessed to the other.
Transfer Item	Ctrl+T	One item from the stack you hover over is transferred from one inventory currently being accessed to the other.
Transfer Item	Lmb×2	This changes depending on certain interface conditions: If in the inventory of a container or creature, one item from the stack is transferred. Otherwise from your inventory while you have an empty space in your hotbar, it will then fill it with the selected item. Otherwise, if you are in the ARK Data menu, it will transfer the entire stack.
Transfer Five Items	⇧ Shift+Lmb×2	Five items from the stack you double click are transferred from one inventory currently being accessed to the other.
Transfer Half-Stack	Ctrl+Lmb×2	Half of the stack you double click is transferred from one inventory currently being accessed to the other.
Toggle Item Names	Q	Toggle whether or not to show the names of all inventory items over the item icon.
Toggle Tooltip	G	Toggle display of tooltip information when hovering over inventory icons.
Move To Hotbar Slot	Shift + Selected Hotbar Number Slot (1,2,…,0)	Move to the Selected Number Slot
Clear Selected Hotbar Slot	Ctrl + Selected Hotbar Number Slot (1,2,…,0)	Clear the Selected Hotbar Slot

Inventory management

Inventory management is a very important skill to develop, as it often can save or ruin you, depending on your inventory setup.

Things to consider first

Before reading on, consider the following:

This advice may not be perfect for you, depending on your playstyle, weight levels, and available resources. But for the most part, these tips will be extremely helpful anyway.

General tips

When it comes to your inventory, there are some things that are always prudent to be kept, no matter what you're doing. You never know when a potential tame, dangerous dino, rare resource, etc. may come across your path. So be sure to always, if possible, to include the following:

• Materials to repair your  Tools and  Armor. (If they are crafted in a  Smithy, consider bringing a pair of  Pliers (exclusive to Aberration), or even a  Smithy (though the latter is not recommended unless you expect your armor to break and want to save resources).
• Extra Tools/Armor, especially if they are crafted in a  Fabricator/ Smithy. Definitely carry multiple  Pikes/your primary Weapon.
•  Bolas. They can easily save your life or get you another tame.
• Torpor-inducing Weapons such as  Tranq Arrows,  Tranquilizer Darts,  Wooden Clubs, etc. You never know when you might need them for a  Raptor,  Sabertooth, etc.
•  Food and  Water. Need I say more?
•  Stimberries and  Narcoberries. (Or better,  Stimulant and  Narcotics.)
• Periodically dump/store all extra items that you don't need in order to lighten and shrink used space you have to scroll and search through.
• Other than these things, use common sense and what you think you might need, depending on where you are. For example, if you live in or near a cold biome, carry extra  Torches, warm clothing, and other things that will help with local dinos and your warmth.

Hotbar

This is where your most important tools and such go, ready to be used at any second. When setting your Hotbar up, keep the following in mind:

• It's a good idea to keep your main Melee Weapon in a place that is easy to select while running. (It can be especially hard to swap slots on a controller)
• Keeping a  Pick and  Hatchet on your hotbar is extremely helpful.
• Always keeping a  Bola there is often handy.
• Keeping  Stimulant or  Stimberries can be helpful, especially in Caves and Swamps.
•  Water and  Food is optional. Although it is quicker to eat/drink/refill from your hotbar, you can do this from your inventory, and often, there are more important items you can keep instead.
• Aside from this, use what is most prudent given the task. Keep in mind that you can eat/drink/select tools directly from your inventory.

Ideas and tips for specific situations

Hunting for a tame

•  Torpor-inducing gear, obviously.
• Consider bringing lots of Armor. You need to be able to take a lot of hits from the potential tame while in the Taming process.
• Taming food. If you know what you're looking for, bring extra of that dino's taming food. If you don't know what to expect, bring  Raw Mutton and  Advanced Crops. If you happen to be travelling on a platform saddle pack perishable items in a  Refrigerator or  Preserving Bin. If you wish to use less advanced items for feeding your tame you should collect them on the spot with a dino.
• Traps. If you know what to expect, bring several traps for its size. If not, just bring smaller traps if it's just you.  Large Bear Traps,  Chain Bolas, etc. Won't be useful if you don't also have lots of preparations for a large tame.
• Extra  Narcoberries or  Narcotics to keep unconscious creatures asleep.
• Additional needed supplies suiting your target tame. For example, if you're going to tame a  Rex, bring walls and anything else that will be useful.
• If the  Cryopods are available have a few in inventory on standby if you plan to tame a couple of large Creatures that could cause a problem in moving. Mind the decay timer on it though, however.

Exploring

• Dinos. You never know what valuable materials or dangerous dinos you may come across, so bringing a few decent, possibly expendable dinos to fight and hold more weight is a great idea.
•  GPS if possible. If not, then bring a  Compass. These are what let you draw your map, and the  GPS can help you mark important places on the map.
• Lots of food.
• If possible, bring Armor suiting all enviroments.
• Taming gear. Though not always useful when exploring, as taming takes you off track and slows you, taming gear is something to consider.
• Any extra available gear that you know will be useful in your situation.

Raiding

If you play on any multiplayer PvP server, raids are a major component of the gameplay. The chances of surviving any raid is pretty low. So try to balance good gear and minimum valuables. The Inventory that players take with them on raids varies immensely, so this section will combine different role's preferences and general tips. Note: this section will not discuss raiding strategies.

• Decent armor.  Flak is preferable, as it provides decent protection, but can be expensive to make several sets.  Chitin is the next best thing, providing moderate protection and being fairly cheap.
• Weapons that suit your role. Guns,  Bows,  Pikes,  Swords,  Explosives,  Assault Rifles,  Fabricated Sniper Rifles, and even  Rocket Launchers are all commonly used.
•  Bolas. Any player hit with a  Bola is doomed.
•  Food &  Water. This includes any available dishes made from  Rockwell Recipes.
• Resources for repairing Armor and Tools, if they can be repaired from your Inventory.
• Other than the above, bring whatever will help you, depending on your enemy's base, location, and strength. If you're raiding very weak players (Not encouraged, as it is bullying, unless they attacked you first) don't risk your good gear. Save it for stronger foes. Minimize items and gear that you will regret losing, and will not be very helpful in the raid. Remove all items from your Inventory that are not required for raids.

Changelog

Patch	ARK: Survival Evolved Changes
175.0	Dino inventories now have limited slots.
176.0	Removed the Dino Inventory Slot limits.
181.0	Players are no longer allowed to carry more than 20% over their maximum Inventory Weight, as this was otherwise exploitable when standing on Dinos.
182.0	You can now drag item stacks that will make you overweight onto your inventory -- it will now only drag the portion of the stack that can fit in your inventory, rather than not allowing the drag operation at all.
184.0	The absolute max inventory limit of 200 items has been raised to 300, and is now respected to avoid losing items when transferring between inventories.
186.3	Fixed a server-side Inventory crash.
187.0	The massive spam of "item removed etc" notification texts when viewing a dino's inventory is now fixed.
187.1	Fixed a rare server-side Inventory crash
187.2	Fixed a bug where Inventory Bags dropped by destroyed structures had infinite life (now have 15 minute timeout).
187.21	Splitting/Merging stacks of items within your Inventory no longer causes "Removed/Added" Item notifications.
187.22	Uploading/Downloading Items to ARK Tribute Inventory now works in singleplayer
214.0	New Feature: Custom Inventory Folders, on any Inventory.
217.0	Inventory Quality of Life: You can now sort inventory lists by various methods, and also text-search them dynamically. Inventory Slot counter
218.7	Player engrams no longer count towards "max" inventory items
218.8	Fixed issue of carried creature's dynamic inventory weight not adding to the flyer's weight
219.0	Engrams now longer count against maximum inventory item limit
220.1	You can drag a Dyed Paintbrush onto your Character preview in Inventory to Paint yourself
220.4	You can now press "T" when hovering over any item in the Inventory Menu to transfer that item to/from remote inventory. Also you can then hold Shift to transfer half a sack, or Ctrl to transfer a single item in a stack.
222.0	You can now press [F] or [E] to close Inventory, more convenient sometimes then Escape when rapidly doing Inventory work.
222.2	Fixed character off-hand equipment slot not being visible on Inventory Menu when viewing storage boxes, etc
222.3	Unversioned Hotfix: Fixed erroneous Inventory keypress closures.
222.6	Unversioned Hotfix: Holding [E] from accessing the Activation Wheel to open Inventory Menu will no longer cause the Inventory Menu to instantly close.
229.0	Added 15 more slots to Smithy Inventory
243.0	Added option to disable Inventory Sounds.
244.0	Fix for increasing memory when opening Inventory UI repeatedly
245.5	Made Carnivore insta-harvest take the death-inventory of the victim as well (provided the Carnivore has Collect Victim Items enabled and sufficient Inventory Weight).
248.0	Non-Drop-In Supply Crates (Cave/Underwater crates etc) no longer have decreasing Health over time (no longer autodestroy), but they can also not accept Inventory anymore and can not be used to generate Boss Tribute Portals.
250.0	Platform Dinos now add 33% of the inventory weight from creatures/players standing on them (previously was 0%), and 85% of the creature/players inherent carry-weight.
251.3	Fixed a CrossARK inventory transfer crash.
254.93	Reduced lag on Inventory Menus
256.0	Total Inventory Menu redesign New inventory sounds
256.28	Name of the dino now displays in inventory UI.
256.22	Made Inventory UI display the empty slots on structures more clearly. Eliminated needless display of extra empty slots on the Craftables panel.
256.2	Fixed inability to drag equip Weapons onto Mantis on new Inventory UI. Fixed new Inventory UI ctrl/shift drag and single-click transfer operations not working on remote inventories.
256.3	Adjusted Blueprint and Engrams colours to help with readability. Craft All now correctly displays Craft 100 When adding multiple stacks into an inventory, the stacks force into stacks of the max size (stacks on deck..) Placing your cursor over an engram or blueprint in a remote inventory and pressing 'E' should craft it. Added an option to turn on the grinder inside of it's remote inventory
256.33	Fix to allow transferring directly into folders in the inventory. Made inventory filters stay active when switching from inventory to/from crafting. The Quick Inventory Slots bar now scales independently from the rest of the UI.
256.34	Remote Inventory UI now defaults to old-school ARK combined-engrams view. You can toggle the "Show Engrams" button to get a separate "Crafting" tab as the new-school UI has. The game will remember your setting for this and for whether you were viewing that Crafting tab. Fixed an issue where free-blank-slots in remote Inventory Boxes were not appearing properly when in "Show Engrams" view. New Craft-All Hotkey: A (bindable in INI) Inventory Sorting modes now save for local & remote inventories & crafting tabs respectively. (later will have the current Sorting mode indicated on the pop-out menu)
256.35	When the inventory is closed HUD text is not displayed. Item categories are no longer displayed in Q Mode.
256.36	An item is now darkened if it cannot be crafted in the owner's inventory Craft Submenu is completely disabled if the inventory doesn't allow crafting that item. Fixed cases where the inventory would lose the shortcut key information.
256.42	The gender of a creature now correctly displays in its inventory.
256.44	Changed the Inventory Menu font to be bolder
257.1	Client-side fix: Menu options for Disabling Menu Teansition and Inventory Access Sounds now working
257.4	Client-side: Fixed Escape not properly closing Inventory Menu after confirmation dialog
259.0	Fixed issue in singleplayer where logging out with a tool equipped caused the inventory to lock up.
260.0	Fixed Corpse Locator not locating the players inventory bag. Obelisks now save inventory in singleplayer.
261.0	Fixed issue where deceased tames left death cache's even with an empty inventory. Added visual indicator for tames and players when their inventory slots are maxed out. After using Transfer All the inventory searching automatically clears. Unsort inventory now works correctly on remote inventories.
262.0	Correctly focusing on engrams when tabbing between Engram and Inventory UI If there is no inventory or harvesting component on a corpse, it will no longer display it the fact that <NAME> is dead.
263.0	Tooltip no longer stays when scrolling the Engram and Inventory UI
264.0	Implant no longer shows up while searching in the inventory.
264.5	Fixed inventory issue where the inventory would display "items removed" when stacks were being completed, and no items were actually removed.
265.284	Fixed a visual issue where the player in inventory would appear as a silhouette.
265.5	Fixed an issue where on client PC dragging directly onto the empty area within a folder would actually not put the item into that folder on the server (leading to a de-sync, when you'd re-enter the inventory you'd see the items at the root) Dragging DIRECTLY onto Inventory Folders , local and remote, now puts the items into those folders (the exception is the 'up level' icon, doesn't do anything) Fixed: When creating a folder, it didn't show it unless you reopen the inventory, or press folder-toggle button.
268.2	Increased client-side UI performance of large scrollable lists (inventory item lists, engram list, server list, etc).
270.1	In the Inventory Menu, Shift+HotkeySlotBinding while hovering over an item will equip it into that HotKey Slot #. Control+HotKeySlotBinding will remove the item from the corresponding HotKey Slot (putting it back into your regular Inventory).
273.11	Dropping Inventory-deposit structures onto platform saddles now counts them against the platform-tame limit.
293.100	Improved search filtering on inventory and crafting menus
294.101	Disabled structure pickup when inventory is full
303.1	Modified the inventory slot size of various items: Industrial forge 60 -> 100 Chemistry Bench 60 -> 100 Fridge 48 -> 80 Industrial Cooker 48 -> 80 Preserving Bin 24 -> 48 Mortar and Pestle 12 -> 24 Refining Forge 8 -> 24
310.41	Fixed a bug that could cause items to transfer back to your own inventory when transferring from personal to remote with the T key.
321.8	Fixed a bug where the inventory rank was not updating on the client unless you rendered the structure again or rejoined the server.
356.1	Fixed being able to select Access inventory from radial wheel on controller