Moving house is the most list-intensive thing a household ever does — and the worst moment to run it from a paper list on the fridge and a group chat. InkSync gives your whole household one shared moving checklist: packing room by room, the mover plan, the address changes, and the first-night box, all edited in real time on every phone. When the truck pulls away, everyone still knows exactly where things stand.
Try InkSync for FreeThe kitchen is the room everyone wants working first and the one that takes longest to unpack — so it gets its own section, started early. Pack the gadgets you rarely touch weeks out, keep one plate, cup, and set of cutlery per person until the last day, and note what goes in the first-night box: the kettle, mugs, tea and coffee, a few plates, washing-up liquid, and a tea towel. A hot drink within thirty minutes of arriving is the difference between a move and an ordeal.
One section per bedroom, one person owning each. Clothes stay on hangers in wardrobe boxes or bagged over the rail; bedding gets bagged separately and labelled “open first” so beds can be made the moment they are assembled — making the beds early is non-negotiable for a good first night. Each person packs their own pyjamas and a change of clothes for the morning, and checks their section off as their room empties.
Bathrooms pack last and unpack first, so they get a section that stays open until moving morning. Toiletries in use go in a leak-proof bag at the end; the first-night box holds the rest — toilet paper (at least two rolls, the most commonly forgotten item), towels, soap, toothbrushes, and a shower curtain if the new place needs one. Toss old medicines and nearly-empty bottles now, and keep daily medications with you, never on the truck.
TVs, consoles, books, and the shelves of things nobody remembers buying. Electronics pack upright with their cables labelled — a cable without a label is a mystery for a month — and books go in small boxes, because they are far heavier than they look. The living-room section is also where the “does this survive the move?” decisions live: keep, sell, donate, or recycle, decided once and written down instead of re-argued at every box.
Kids pack their own section with a parent alongside: favourite toys and comfort items go in the first-night bag, not the bottom of a sealed box, and the school bag with immediate supplies stays accessible until the last morning. Sorting toys by type as you box them means the new room unpacks in an afternoon instead of a week — and when a child checks off their own room, the move feels like something they did, not something done to them.
Some things never go on the truck: passports and birth certificates, the lease or completion paperwork, home insurance documents, utility account references, the keys to the new place (plus spares), daily medications, phone and laptop chargers, and a basic toolkit. This section is the “do not load” list — packed in your own car, checked off as it goes in, and opened first when you arrive. If it is on this list, it travels with a person, not with the boxes.
Open InkSync and create a checklist called something obvious — “The Move” with the date in the name. This is the single source of truth for the whole move: packing, the mover plan, the address changes, the first-night box. Everything the household needs to know lives here, not across five text threads and a fridge list.
Give every room its own section — kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, living areas, kids’ rooms — plus the garage, which gets its own section and a “donate” list of its own. Finish one room before starting five more: half-packed rooms create confusion and loose items. Write the box number and the destination room on each list item as you pack, so a box tells the crew where it belongs without anyone opening it.
Tap share and invite your partner and family by email. Each person joins with their own free InkSync account — Android app from the Play Store, or the web app on iPhone, tablet, and laptop — and the move list lands on every phone within seconds. Everyone adds their own items and checks off their own rooms, and every change lands live: no “I thought you were doing that,” no double-packed toiletries.
Movers do not need an InkSync account. Share the sections they need — the room-by-room inventory, which boxes are fragile and which end goes up, what loads last so it comes off first — as a copy they can read on the day. InkSync is the list, not a moving company: it does not book movers, quote prices, or track boxes by QR code. What it does is keep the household’s one true list straight, so the crew gets clear instructions instead of shouted guesses.
The last item on the list is the first box you open: toiletries, bedding, chargers, a change of clothes, snacks, paper plates, basic tools, the kids’ bedtime items, and pet food if you have pets. Pack it the day before moving day, label it “OPEN FIRST” on every side, and carry it in your own car — never on the truck. Check it off the list when it is packed, and the first night in the new house takes care of itself.
A paper list fails in three predictable ways, and a move hits all three at once. First, it lives in one place — on the fridge — which is useless when you are at the store buying packing tape or at the new house wondering where the shower curtain is. Second, it has versions: the list on the fridge, the list in your partner’s phone notes, the list someone scribbled on a box. By moving week there are three truths and nobody knows which one is current. Third, it cannot check itself off in real time — so two people buy the same thing, or nobody buys it because each assumed the other did.
The first-night box is where paper lists cost the most. The most common moving mistake is packing everything away into fifty identical brown boxes and then arriving late at night, exhausted, needing a toothbrush, a towel, and a phone charger — and opening twenty boxes to find them. The fix is a list that names the box: one clearly marked box or bag, packed last, carried in your own car, opened first. In InkSync it is a section of the move list with its own check-offs, so the whole household can see it is packed before the truck leaves.
The same rule fixes the address changes. Bank, doctor, school, subscriptions, the electoral roll, friends and family — the change-of-address list is long, boring, and easy to lose halfway. Kept as a section of the shared move list, every notification gets checked off as it is sent, visible to everyone, with nothing duplicated and nothing forgotten. And when the move is over, the list does not die: uncheck it, save it, and the next move — or the next big household project — starts from a list that already knows how a move works.
The best moving house checklist app for a family is the one everyone actually uses — one shared list the whole household edits in real time, room by room, that works offline in dead-zone stairwells and syncs the moment phones reconnect. InkSync is built exactly for that: one move list with a section per room, the first-night box, and the address changes, shared by email with the whole household. The free plan covers up to 50 notes and checklists; sharing the move list with your family in real time is a Premium feature, at $0.99 per week or $33.99 per year.
Yes — share the sections the movers need, like the room-by-room inventory and which boxes are fragile, as a copy they can read on moving day; they do not need an InkSync account. The household itself edits the live list by email invite, so packing progress and check-offs stay in sync across the family’s phones. One honest limit: InkSync is the list, not a moving company — it does not find or book movers and it does not quote moving prices.
Yes. InkSync is live on Android through the Google Play Store, and the web app at app.inksyncnote.com works on any phone — iPhones included — plus tablets and laptops, so a mixed-device household moves from the same list. It is offline-first, so the move list opens and updates with zero bars in the stairwell or the parking garage, and everything syncs to the family the moment phones reconnect. A native iOS app is on the way; meanwhile the web app is fully featured.
One shared checklist for the whole move — packing, movers, address changes, and the first-night box. Free to try on Android and the web, no credit card required.
Get started free