The Great Sort

The Dossier

A record of the household, made room by room.

The Dossier is a free tool that walks you through photographing and describing each thing in the house that might carry value — room by room, item by item — until you hold a complete dossier of the home. It guides the photo capture for each piece and prompts you for the plain description that goes with it: the marks, the measurements, the condition, the history. You work through the rooms at your own pace, and what accumulates is a clear, honest account of what is in them.

What you get

A dossier that is yours.

When you are done, the dossier belongs to you. Download it, share it, and send it to any appraiser, auction house, or estate-sale company you choose. The Dossier does not estimate values, and it does not sell anything. What it does is narrower and more useful: it makes your things appraisable, so that whoever you eventually ask can give you a straight answer, because you will have given them everything they need to.

The method

The same discipline as the guide, on your phone.

The app follows the same shot lists and description prompts as our capture guide — the universal five photographs for every piece, and the category particulars for furniture, china, silver, art, jewelry, collections, and tools. If you would rather read the method first, the guide is the paper version of what the app walks you through: How to photograph and describe your things.