Bag addons: everyone has one, and everyone has their own needs for managing their inventory. Do you just need a simple consolidation of all your bags into one frame, or do you want somewhat more? Do you need tooltip reminders telling you how much of something you have? How about across all characters? Does it need to include the guild bank? Do you need to organize things in your own, user-definable categories, or would you rather the addon did it for you? I’m here to help you decide.

Bagnon

Bagnon, by Tuller, is a simple all-in-one bag frame with some customization options. You can select how many rows your bags display with, as well as the color of the frame. Bagnon also comes with Bagnon_Forever and Bagnon_Tooltips, which keep track of how many of an item you have on each of your characters and then adds that information to the tooltips. It also has a search feature, which I find especially handy at the bank. (I have way too many things in there.) You can access it by clicking the title of the frame. Bagnon also has the ability to allow you to see what’s in your bank when you’re not near a banker. You won’t be able to take anything out, of course, but you can at least see what you have without making the long trek to a city. The only downside is that it does not count or log Guild Bank items, so if you have a bank alt with it’s own guild, any items you store in there won’t be added to the tooltips and also won’t be accessible for you to see without being near a guild vault. Bagnon also doesn’t include items in your mailbox in these counts.

Bagnon would be good for you if:

1. You have a hard time remembering items you left on your bank alt or alts and how much he/she has.
2. You want a simple all-in-one bag frame for both your bag and bank and want to choose what color that frame is.
3. You want a search function.
4. You want to be able to see what’s in your bank when you’re not near a banker.

Combuctor

Combuctor is Tuller’s second bag addon, made after Bagnon. Combuctor is very similar to Bagnon in that it consolidates your bag and bank into one frame, uses the Bagnon_Forever and Bagnon_Tooltips, you can see what’s in your bank from afar, and also has search functionality. However, unlike Bagnon, Combuctor looks more like it’s part of the original Blizzard interface, and you cannot customize this look.

Combuctor also has this neat sorting thing: Tabs! You’ll notice on the bottom and side of your bag/bank frame and are tabs. The bottom tabs sort by bag-type: “Normal” is any normal bag that can hold any item. “Trade” are specialty bags like herb bags, mining bags, enchanting bags, etc. The “Keys” tab is pretty obvious; That’s your keyring. The tabs on the side sort your inventory by item-type: There’s “Equipment” which shows all wearable gear; “Usable” which shows all items that can be used by your character, such as badges, mana/health potions, food/drink, consumables; “Quest” which shows items related to quests; “Trade Goods” which shows all items related to professions such as cloth, gems, enchanting mats, and frozen orbs; and last (but not least) the “Miscellaneous” tab for everything else.

Another way Combuctor can sort items is by quality. On the bottom of the frame, above the bottom tabs, are 7 circle-shaped buttons with color corresponding to item quality. The one button without a quality is “All,” the grey is “Poor,” white is “Common,” green is “Uncommon,” blue is “Rare,” purple is “Epic,” and orange is “Legendary.”

Combuctor would be good for you if:

1. You want an all-in-one frame for both your bag and bank but want it to match the default Blizzard frames.
2. You want item counts for all characters in your tooltips.
3. You want a search function.
4. You want to be able to see what’s in your bank when you’re not near a banker.
5. You want to sort items by quality.
6. You want to sort items by type.

TBag

TBag, by Shefki, has a rather amusing name. (That could be offensive to some people?) However, once you get past that, the addon auto-sorts your inventory for you into groups based on item-type. These groupings are somewhat customizable, but doing so can get confusing. There’s no way to sort your items by quality instead of item type from what I can see. There is, however, a search option. I didn’t like TBag as much as I could have, mostly because it felt too difficult to customize, there was no way to scale it down, and it took up a good portion of my screen especially in edit mode. I had to keep clicking and dragging the frame around so that I could see everything that was in it. It also doesn’t have any sort of tooltip or item counting feature.

TBag would be good for you if:

1. You want to have your bag and bank auto-sorted for you straight “out of the box” that you don’t have to customize, but can if you want to.
2. You want a search function.
3. You want an all-in-one frame for both bag and bank.

ArkInventory

ArkInventory, by Arkayenro, at first just looks like a simple one-frame deal like Bagnon. However, it has the ability to sort your items into groups YOU define, and in that sense has a look similar to TBag without all the extra space and the taking-up-your-whole-screen thing. ArkInventory is scalable, as well. So if you find yourself with a ton of groups in your bank and it’s a bit too big for you, you can always scale it down. I set both my bank and bag at 80%. ArkInventory also has some great functions: it has a search feature, you can customize the colors, you can check other character’s banks/bags, and it also has a tooltip/counting feature like Bagnon does. The thing about it though that really sets it apart is that it includes your guild bank. That’s right, you read that correctly! It’s the first bag addon I’ve come across that also changed the look of your guild bank and included it’s contents in your tooltips. It also tells you how much an item you have in your mailbox, which Bagnon doesn’t do! You can also view the contents of any of your character’s bags, banks, or guild banks even if you’re not logged into them. You can even do this across realms! Ark really covers all the bases, even if it’s not the prettiest looking thing.

ArkInventory would be good for you if:

1. You need to know the counts of items in all your character’s bags, banks, mailbox, and guild banks in your tooltips.
2. You need a search function.
3. You want to sort your items into groups that YOU define.
4. You want to actually be able to view the contents of your character’s bags/banks/guild banks, even if you’re logged into a different toon.

FBag of Holding

FBag of Holding, by Feithar, is an interesting combination of user-definable sorting (ala ArkInventory) and tabs (ala Combuctor). However, it only works for your bag frame. You can add a bank and guild-bank tab (like I did in the screenshot) but you wouldn’t be able to move items between bags using those tabs, they only allow you to see what is in there. Besides that, though, it’s a great combination of the user-definable grouping and tabbing. I would use this over ArkInventory if it included the same functionality for the bank. FBag of Holding also adds item counts to your tooltips in the same manner as Bagnon.

FBag of Holding would be good for you if:

1. You need a search function.
2. You want item counts across characters in your tooltips.
3. You want user-definable sorting.
4. You want that sorting to be in tabs.
5. You don’t mind having the default interface for your bank.

If there are any other bag addons out there that do something different, please let me know that I missed them! If there’s enough feedback, I might do a round two. ;)

Thanks for reading, and good luck choosing the right one for you!