ShelfKeeper: know what you have, waste less, be ready
ShelfKeeper is a free Android app that keeps track of the food and other stock in your house. Scan a barcode, point the camera at the best-before date, and it is saved.
- Know what you have. No more buying twice, and you can see what you are missing.
- Waste less. See what goes off soon and eat it first.
- Be ready. See how many days of water and food you hold, free, and compare it with the government's Be Ready advice, for a power cut, a storm or a few days without the shops.
It works on your phone on its own: no account, no sign-up, nothing else to set up. It runs on Android 8.0 or later.
Free, no account.
Or download the APK directly.
Best before12 MAR 2027
How it works
- Scan the barcode. The product fills itself in from the product database on the phone, or from Open Food Facts.
- Point the camera at the date. ShelfKeeper reads the best-before date on the phone. Check it and save.
- Use it in time. The Expiry list shows what goes off next, and an alert reminds you before it does.
What it does
- Scan to add. Scan a barcode and the product fills itself in from Open Food Facts. Point the camera at the printed date and ShelfKeeper reads the best-before for you, on the phone.
- Quick add. Barcode, date, saved – in as few taps as possible.
- Expiry. See what is going off soon, oldest first, so you use it in time.
- Shopping list. Mark products essential, give them a usage rate, and ShelfKeeper tells you what to buy. It alerts you when something runs low. Filling the list from your essentials is part of Plus.
- Be ready. How many days of food and water the household has, what would close the gap, and a kit checklist you tick off. Free; Plus adds the nutrients check.
- Your own layout. Locations and sub-locations, categories and your own product types, with photos.
- Stock Check. Count a shelf and fix the numbers in one pass.
What it looks like
Be ready for a few days
A power cut, a storm or a few days without the shops: the government's Be Ready advice is to keep about 3 days of drinking water (3 litres per person per day) and food that needs no cooking, and to build it up gradually.
ShelfKeeper already holds your stock and best-before dates, so it can tell you how many days of food and water the household has and what to add on your next shop. Compare that with the advice above. You set your own target in the app's Be ready screen (adults, children and days), and if you run a ShelfKeeper server, it syncs there too. A free kit checklist (torch, radio, power bank, first aid and more) sits alongside it, for you to tick off.
Buy a little extra each shop and eat the oldest first. Nothing sits in the back until it expires.
What the advice says, and what ShelfKeeper does about it
Based on the government's Be Ready advice (checked 27 Oct 2026). ShelfKeeper is not affiliated with or endorsed by the UK government.
Private by design
- No account, no ads, no analytics in ShelfKeeper itself.
- Your stock stays on your own phones, and on your own server if you run one. Barcode lookups go to Open Food Facts.
- The product database for offline scanning is signed, and the phone checks it before using it.
The details are in the privacy policy.
More than one phone
Share one list between the household's phones over your home Wi-Fi. In Settings, make one phone the household hub, then scan its pairing code from the others. Changes on any phone reach the rest. Sharing between phones is part of Plus, and one purchase covers every paired phone.
Optional: your own server
If you want more, run the free ShelfKeeper server on a Raspberry Pi or any Linux machine at home. You don't need it to use the app, and syncing with it is free. It gives you:
- An always-on copy of the household's stock that every phone syncs to.
- A web interface for the same stock, from any browser on your network.
- Optional access for an AI assistant, so it can ask what is in the house or add stock with its own separate key.
Setup takes a few commands: see Get started.
Free, and ShelfKeeper Plus
Free
- No limit on how much you track. No account, no ads.
- Scan to add, best-before dates read from the label, expiry alerts, allergen warnings, locations and categories.
- Be ready: days of food and water, and what closes the gap.
- Export your stock to a file whenever you like.
- Sync with your own ShelfKeeper server, which is free too.
Plus
A one-off unlock, not a subscription. One purchase covers every phone paired with yours.
- Share one list between the household's phones.
- Nutrients in Be ready: what your stock covers.
- Diet warnings: not vegan or vegetarian, palm oil, high in sugar, salt or fat. Allergen warnings stay free.
- Waste report: what you used up and what you binned, month by month.
- Essentials go on the shopping list by themselves.
- Automatic daily backup.
£5.99 launch price until 31 January 2027, then £9.99.
Try Plus free for 14 days in the app. When the trial ends, the app goes back to Free and keeps all your stock. Everyone who helped test ShelfKeeper gets Plus free.
The product database stays free and public under the ODbL, whether or not you buy Plus: see Product data.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. Install the app and start scanning. There is no sign-up and no login.
How much does it cost?
The app is free, with no ads and no limit on how much you track. ShelfKeeper Plus is an optional one-off unlock that adds sharing between phones, nutrients in Be ready, diet warnings, the waste report and automatic backup. It costs £5.99 until 31 January 2027, then £9.99.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Your stock is kept on the phone, and the date is read on the phone. The app downloads an offline product database, so many barcodes fill themselves in without a signal. A barcode it does not have is looked up on Open Food Facts when you are online.
Is my data shared?
Your stock stays on your own phones, and on your own server if you run one. A barcode the phone does not know is sent to Open Food Facts to look it up. When a product is missing or wrong, the app can offer to share the product's details with ShelfKeeper; nothing is sent unless you tap Share, and you can turn it off in Settings › Sharing. The details are in the privacy policy.
Do I need a server?
No. The app works on one phone by itself, and with Plus the household's phones share one list over home Wi-Fi. A ShelfKeeper server on a Raspberry Pi or another Linux machine is optional: it keeps an always-on copy and adds a web interface.
Is there an iPhone version?
No. ShelfKeeper is for Android phones running Android 8.0 or later.
Product data: Open Food Facts and its sister databases
Contains information from Open Food Facts, Open Pet Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts and Open Products Facts, which are made available under the Open Database License (ODbL). https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/
Sources:
Open Food Facts - https://world.openfoodfacts.org;
Open Pet Food Facts - https://world.openpetfoodfacts.org;
Open Beauty Facts - https://world.openbeautyfacts.org;
Open Products Facts - https://world.openproductsfacts.org
Licence: Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0 -
https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/.
The individual contents of the database are available under the Database
Contents License (DbCL) 1.0 -
https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1-0/
Modifications: selected columns parsed from each source's JSONL export
into one SQLite table; UK subset. A barcode in more than one source keeps
the row of the first source listed. Product images under CC-BY-SA, by the
contributors of each source.
/dump/NOTICE.txt · /dump/manifest.json
Every dump is ECDSA P-256 signed; the phone verifies the signature and both hashes before it opens the file.