What should you write on boxes going into storage?

A box number that matches your list, a category rather than a room ("holiday", "tax files", "baby clothes"), where it came from, and the month and year you packed it. A storage unit has no rooms, and the date is how you decide a year later whether a box can go unopened.

How do you label boxes so you can read them in a storage unit?

Label all four sides and the top, and turn the labels toward the aisle when you stack. A perfect label on the side of a box pressed against the wall tells you nothing, and leaving a walkway to read them from is the whole point.

What kind of labels hold up in long term storage?

Permanent marker written directly on the box, plus a printed label sealed under clear packing tape. Avoid pencil, ballpoint and ink-jet printing in damp air, and skip sticky notes and masking tape — both let go within months, usually taking the only record of the contents with them.

Should you write valuables on a storage box?

No. Write the category, not an inventory of what is worth taking. "Electronics", "tools" and "jewelry" on the outside of a box are an advertisement to anyone walking past an open unit door. Keep the detail on your list instead.

How to Label Boxes for Storage You Open Later

Labeling boxes for storage is a different job from labeling boxes for a move. A moving label has to survive two days and be read by somebody carrying it. A storage label has to survive a year in the dark, be read from a doorway, and still make sense to you long after you've forgotten what you packed.

That changes four things: what you write, where you write it, what you write it with, and whether the label faces out.

The timescale is the reason. Published figures for how long the average storage unit stays rented run from around 14 months to nearly 20, which is well past the point where you can still picture what you packed. The label has to work for the version of you who has forgotten.

What a storage label needs that a moving label doesn't

Add	Why
The date you packed it	Six months in, "packed March 2026" tells you which era of your life a box is from
Where it came from	"Old house — attic" is how you reason about a box you don't remember
A category, not a room	Storage has no rooms. "Holiday", "tax files", "baby clothes" is what you'll search for
A number that matches a list	The label can hold four words. The list holds everything else

So a storage label reads something like "B14 · Holiday · old house attic · Mar 2026", and the rest lives on your list.

Face every label out, and label four sides

The rule that matters most in a unit: the label has to be readable from the aisle. A perfect label on the back of a box pressed against a wall tells you nothing.

So label all four sides and the top. When you stack, turn the labels out toward the aisle. It takes a few extra seconds per box and saves you unstacking a wall to read one.

Leave an aisle to read them from, too — see how to organize a storage unit.

Write it so it lasts

Permanent marker directly on the box, as well as a label. Paper labels let go in damp air; the marker doesn't.
Clear packing tape over a paper label seals it against humidity and stops the edge lifting.
Avoid pencil, ballpoint and ink-jet printing on anything that might get damp. Laser print and marker hold up.
Skip sticky notes and masking tape. Neither is meant to hold for months, and when one lets go it usually takes the only record of what's in the box with it.

Our free storage label maker prints numbered, color-coded storage labels on Avery sheets or plain paper, with optional QR codes.

Don't write "valuables" on the outside

Write the category, not an inventory of what's worth taking. "Kitchen" is a fine label for a box holding the good knives. "Electronics", "tools", "jewelry" and "guns" on the outside of a box are an advertisement to anyone who walks past an open unit door.

Keep the detail on your list instead of on the box.

The label points at a list

A storage label's whole job is to be a pointer. Four words on a box plus a number that matches a list beats trying to write a box's contents on its outside, and it's the only approach that still works a year later.

How to make a storage unit inventory list covers the list itself. Where a QR code helps is in closing the gap between the two: stick a code on the box, link it to the box once, and scanning it with a phone camera opens that box's full contents and photos while you're standing in the unit.

We built Stow Haven to be that list. Each box keeps its number, its location and a photo of what went in, the search forgives typos, and it works offline and syncs when you're back in signal — which matters, because storage units are where phone service goes to die.

Questions

What should you write on boxes going into storage?: A box number that matches your list, a category rather than a room ("holiday", "tax files", "baby clothes"), where it came from, and the month and year you packed it. A storage unit has no rooms, and the date is how you decide a year later whether a box can go unopened.
How do you label boxes so you can read them in a storage unit?: Label all four sides and the top, and turn the labels toward the aisle when you stack. A perfect label on the side of a box pressed against the wall tells you nothing, and leaving a walkway to read them from is the whole point.
What kind of labels hold up in long term storage?: Permanent marker written directly on the box, plus a printed label sealed under clear packing tape. Avoid pencil, ballpoint and ink-jet printing in damp air, and skip sticky notes and masking tape — both let go within months, usually taking the only record of the contents with them.
Should you write valuables on a storage box?: No. Write the category, not an inventory of what is worth taking. "Electronics", "tools" and "jewelry" on the outside of a box are an advertisement to anyone walking past an open unit door. Keep the detail on your list instead.