How do you manage "on stock" component on your personal lab?

For personal stock and projects, I tried using all of the various online part-database services. I disliked all of them. Most are highly focused on pulling Octopart data on active ICs. The problem is the majority of my stock is actually passives. I only buy the actives I need for a project (plus 1 or 2 extra). However, I always buy a lot of extra passives (when I buy them.)

What really drove me crazy with all of the options is SO. MANY. FREAKING. CLICKS.to do anything. And in the end, they ALL have LOUSY search engines. Personally, I think my ideal solution would be if Octopart let me upload an inventory, and then their search showed my results as one of the distributors. Anyway.

So, after trying them all, I settled on Google Sheets. I briefly started setting up a SQLite database. But even that had far more overhead than I needed. I just wanted a list of the parts I have with a few key details and a hint on where I put them. And like all organizational tools, it could NOT be cumbersome to use.

I preferred an online spreadsheet for two reasons: 1) I can easily access it from any of my devices, and 2) Sheets has the magic "query" command. The cool thing about "query" is that you can select a data range and then perform sql-like queries on it.

Despite the fantastic functionality, I found I didn't need it. The search I found myself doing most often was: "what is the largest capacitance I have in the smallest available package." So for capacitors, I added columns for the farads as farads. And then two additional columns for numeric + units. That way, I can sort on capacitance but have James-readable labels like "10 uF". I did the same for voltage. On resistors, I did something similar.  With those columns simple filtering is all I need!

On actives, I have found a column to describe the part (Linear Reg, LDO, Op Amp), and then two columns for characteristics is all I needed. (Along with part number.)

While I know others want a way more complicated database, I didn't. By breaking up type of part into their own tabs and adding a tiny bit of metadata, this lightweight spreadsheet has the critical information I need and is quick to use.

Whenever I receive parts, I add them to my spreadsheet while handling them. It's a very incremental effort and has drastically reduced my re-order of existing parts.

If anyone is interested, here is a read-only version of my parts inventory.

I think that in the end I'm doing something similar to your spreadsheet: I find myself mainly using filters too and nothing more. I actually like the additional column with the location of the component and the "sort and label" functionality with numeric value and "human readable" value.

I think that in the end I'm doing something similar to your spreadsheet: I find myself mainly using filters too and nothing more. I actually like the additional column with the location of the component and the "sort and label" functionality with numeric value and "human readable" value.

I had to think back to when I created this spreadsheet. Originally, I started the spreadsheet as a way to organize what I had. I intended to then create a SQLlite database and import the data.

One of the issues I was concerned about is how different part types have different key characteristics. So, I decided to do separate tabs to understand how I would build the database's schema.

After doing that initial inventory step, I realized the spreadsheet was all I actually wanted. Plus, I didn't have to build any UI since all of the data sorting/analysis tools were already there.

Like many projects, I had all kinda of crazy ideas for how to extend the functionality. And I suppose in the future, I could still move to a small database.

But after committing to this idea for a year, I'd rather solder stuff instead.