Nearby Chests

Craft, build and fuel stations from the chests around you, and put everything away with one button. Client-side only: nobody else on the server needs it.

What it does

• Craft and build from your chests. Anything within 30 m counts as if you were carrying it.
• Feed smelters, kilns and fires from your chests. One press, one item, same as vanilla.
• Stack puts everything away. Press Stack on any chest and each item goes to the chest it already lives in. New items join similar things, or take an empty chest.
• Tidy a messy chest. The three-bar icon next to Place stacks sends what doesn't belong to the right chest, and pulls in what does.
• Ignore a slot. Middle-click a slot in your inventory and Stack leaves it alone.
• Pull build materials. Ctrl + left click with a piece selected on your hammer grabs its materials from nearby chests.

Your food, ammo, gear and hotbar stay with you. The Obliterator, gravestones, dungeon chests and other players' open chests are never touched.

Optional, off by default

Turn these on in BepInEx\config\NearbyChests.cfg:

• StackAndTidyKey: one key stacks your inventory and tidies every chest in range.
• OnlyUseMarkedChests: tick Include in NearbyChests in a chest window and only ticked chests are used.
• DontFillEmptyChests: Stack never starts a new chest on its own.
• FallbackToAnyChest: items with no matching chest go into any chest with room.

Every setting, and the item groups file that decides what counts as "similar", is explained in the full guide.

Links

• Full guide
• Source and issues on GitHub
• Changelog

Changelog

Notable changes in each release. The section for a tagged version becomes that release's notes on GitHub, so keep the headings as ## <version> - <date>.

1.2.1 - 2026-11-02

No double charge next to ValheimPlus. With CraftFromChests, BuildFromChests and StationsFromChests all off, the mod still took a recipe's shortfall out of nearby chests whenever the game spent materials. ValheimPlus's CraftFromChest does the same, so running both charged the chests twice (10 wood carried 0 took 20 from the chest). Spending from chests now only happens when one of those settings is on; with them off the inventory behaves exactly as vanilla. Stack, Tidy and PullBuildMaterials are unaffected.

Thanks to mats-johanson. (#13)

1.2.0 - 2026-10-16

Choose your chests. New OnlyUseMarkedChests setting, off by default. Turn it on and each chest's window gets an Include in NearbyChests checkbox; only ticked chests are used for crafting, building, station feeding, Stack and Tidy. Stack or Tidy on an unticked chest shows a message. The tick is saved on the chest, so other players with the mod see it too.

Stack and tidy with one key. New StackAndTidyKey setting, unbound by default. With no chest open, it stacks your inventory and then tidies every chest in stacking range, re-sorting each one. F16 to F24 work here and for PullBuildMaterialsKey, which Valheim's own key handling can't read.

Keep empty chests empty. New DontFillEmptyChests setting, off by default. Stack and Tidy never start a new chest; items with no home stay with you.

Thanks to rattus-ratgirl for all three. (#6, #7, #8)

1.1.2 - 2026-10-12

Stack and Tidy leave the Obliterator alone. Pressing Place stacks with the Obliterator open could send items into it that you never meant to destroy: new materials went into it as if it were an empty chest, and items from the same group as what you'd put in (Flint with Stone) were sent to it as their "similar" chest. Stack on the Obliterator or a gravestone now does the vanilla stack, so only items already inside go in, and the Tidy button is hidden there so it can't pull items in from your chests.

Put leftovers anywhere. New FallbackToAnyChest setting, off by default. When an item has no similar chest, no empty chest and no shared chest, it goes into any nearby chest with room instead of staying in your inventory. Holding Use on a chest then puts everything away; run Tidy later to sort out the mix. (#1)

1.1.1 - 2026-10-12

See what you have. Materials in the crafting panel and build menu now show what you have next to what's needed, for example 312/5, counting nearby chests as well as your inventory. Large piles are shortened (1240 shows as 1.2k) so they fit. New ShowAvailableCounts setting, on by default; turn it off for the vanilla needed-only number.

1.1.0 - 2026-09-23

Ignore a slot. Middle-click a slot in your inventory and Stack leaves it alone. A pin in the slot's corner shows it's marked; middle-click again to clear it. The mark is on the slot, not the item, and is saved with your character. New IgnoreSlots setting, on by default.

Pull build materials. With a piece selected on your hammer, Ctrl + left click pulls that piece's materials from nearby chests into your inventory, for building out of range. Each press adds one more piece's worth on top of what you carry. New PullBuildMaterials, PullBuildMaterialsKey and PullBuildSets settings.

1.0.9 - 2026-09-16

Tidy merges the smaller half too. Tidying a chest with one trophy in it while another chest held a pile of trophies did nothing: the lone trophy counted as that chest's own category, so it was left alone. Now, if another chest holds more of the open chest's category, the open chest sends its share over there, the same "most of the group keeps it" rule that Tidy already used when pulling items in.

1.0.8 - 2026-09-13

Group tweaks. Feathers and Bone Fragments now live with the hides. Bear Paw (BjornPaw) and Ectoplasm are in the Black Forest group, and Chain has moved from the metals to the swamp group. Existing groups files keep what they have; delete NearbyChests.groups.txt to pick up the new defaults.

1.0.7 - 2026-09-12

Feed stations from chests. Coal and ore into smelters and kilns, wood into fires and hearths, fuel into cooking stations and ovens: if you're not carrying it, it comes out of a nearby chest. One press still adds one item, the same as vanilla. New StationsFromChests setting, on by default. Food and mead stay manual - a cooking station takes several different dishes and a fermenter one mead base at a time, so the mod would be choosing for you.

Longer default ranges. CraftingRange is now 30 m (was 20) and StackingRange 15 m (was 10). Existing configs keep the values you already have.

Tidy merges a split group. Two chests holding the same category (Needles in one, Chitin in the other) used to leave each other alone, so they never came together. Tidy now pulls the group into whichever chest holds the most of it, and the chest you have open wins a tie.

1.0.6 - 2026-09-12

• Tidy gathers strays: items of the open chest's category are pulled in from chests where they don't belong. New TidyGathers setting, on by default.
• One catch-all chest: items in no group used to claim an empty chest each. They now share a single catch-all chest.
• Plains and Ocean are one group (PlainsOcean). Delete NearbyChests.groups.txt to pick up the new defaults.

1.0.5 - 2026-09-11

• Crafting and stacking got separate ranges: CraftingRange for crafting, upgrading and building, StackingRange for Stack, Tidy and sorting.
• The tested item groups became the shipped defaults.

1.0.4 - 2026-09-11

• Tidy puts a homeless group into an empty chest, which becomes that group's chest.
• Chests can be shared: a chest holding one group takes a second, related group (ShareChests).

1.0.2 - 2026-09-11

• Added the Tidy button to the chest window, as a small icon left of Place stacks.

1.0.1 - 2026-09-11

• Food is detected by whether the game produces it, so berries, mushrooms and honey stack as ingredients while cooked dishes, meads and potions stay with you.

1.0.0 - 2026-09-11

• Craft, upgrade and build from nearby chests.
• Stack sends your items to every nearby chest that already holds them, finds homes for new items, and sorts the chests it touched.