Animal Crossing New Horizons guide: How to increase inventory space

When you start your Animal Crossing: New Horizons adventure on Switch, you will have space in your pockets for 20 items. This is already an upgrade from New Leaf, which was limited to 16 slots, but it’s not as much space as you think. New Horizons introduces resources like Stone, Wood, and Iron Nuggets for making furniture and tools, and these take up slots.

If you’re planning on gathering and crafting while wandering around your town, you’re likely to find yourself with very little space for fish, fruit, and bugs. Thankfully there is a way to increase your inventory space quite dramatically in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We’ll walk you through the steps.

You can obtain your first inventory upgrade very quickly if you know where to look. Head into the Resident Services tent and access the Automatic Bells Dispenser (ABD), otherwise known as the machine in the corner. There’s an option to buy a Pocket Organization Guide for 5,000 Nook Miles. This may seem a bit steep, but it’s well worth the investment. After you purchase the upgrade, you’ll instantly have 10 more inventory slots, bringing your total to 30.

You may think 30 inventory slots is more than you could ever want. You’d be wrong. The good news is that you can upgrade your inventory one more time for another 10 slots. The bad news is that it’ll take over a week of playing before you’ll be able to unlock it.

As you progress through the game, eventually you’ll have to place three housing plots for new villagers to move in (bringing your total villager count to five). On the same day that the third new villager moves in, Nook will inform you that he’s working on an upgrade for the Resident Services tent, transforming it into an actual building.

After a day of construction, the new Resident Services building will open. Once it does, access the ABD and select “Redeem Nook Miles.” You’ll see new upgrades available, including an Ultimate Pocket Stuffing Guide for 8,000 Nook Miles. Make the purchase and you’ll net another 10 slots, bringing your total to 40.

As of right now, we haven’t found a way to increase the inventory space beyond 40 slots, but we’ll be sure to upgrade this guide if we manage to crack it.