During recent beta weekends I’ve seen people ask the question in chat countless times: how and where to expand your inventory space. Vendors selling increased bag space aren’t hard to find once you know what to look for, but I still recall it took me about an hour or searching multiple cities and towns to find one when I first started playing (I’m blind, I know).

This guide will give you a basic rundown on how to increase your inventory and how to most effectively store items in The Elder Scrolls Online.

Why expand your inventory space?

All characters start with basic 60 item slots in their inventory. It can fill up very quickly when you’re questing for awhile, and making frequent trips to vendors, bankers or crafting stations can be a huge waste of time. Even if you don’t pick up various food, fishing baits or equipment you won’t use, 60 slots is still not enough to hold all the quest items and crafting materials. Everything has its value and the more you pick up, the more gold you’ll end up having; it all adds up.

Where to buy inventory slots

Most towns and cities in Tamriel have bag vendors which can enable you to expand your available inventory space, for a fee of course. It would be quite the task to find and list every available vendor, so instead I’ll show you exactly what to look for!

Vendors which increase your inventory space can easily be found if you simply open a map of an area and look for a particular bag icon, as shown in the attached image. As mentioned most major towns have these vendors, and once you know what to watch out for finding them is a breeze.

How much does it cost?

The first upgrade will increase your available slots from 50 to 60, and costs 400 gold. Second upgrade costs 2,000g, increasing to 5,900g for third. The cost increases with every 10 slots you purchase, and you can have a total of 200 inventory slots, but it will take quite awhile to accumulate that amount of gold. I didn’t get the chance to see how much further upgrades cost, so perhaps someone can chime in with exact numbers in the comments just below the post.

While the price tag is pretty steep for new players, it’s well worth spending your gold until you have at least 100 slots. Consider it an investment, as being able to carry additional items means you can pick up more crafting materials and vendor trash to sell.

Horse inventory

Your horse can also be used to expand your inventory space. If you remember my guide on horses, you’ll know you can feed your mount once every 20 hours with different types of food. While most players are recommending feeding apples for increased speed (particularly useful in PvP), it may be prudent to do it once you can afford a Light Horse (42,700 gold).

Your Imperial (1 gold) or Common (17,200g) horse can never be a fast as a Light one, so you can safely keep feeding them Oats for increased inventory space. It will take quite awhile until you can afford a Light horse so for leveling use a slower one but with increased inventory capacity. As a side note, your horse doesn’t have a separate inventory, instead your own character’s inventory is simply expanded.

It costs 250 gold to feed your horse, and every time you feed them Oats their inventory increases by 1 slot. You can only have one horse active at any given time, but your stables can store several of them. Simply visiting any stable master in the world will enable you to switch your active mount; your inventory will not be increased unless your active horse is the one you fed Oats to.

Bank space

Other than your own inventory you can also store items in your bank. You do have to visit your nearest banker to store items, however any crafting materials you stash away can be used directly from any crafting station in the world. Upgrading your bank storage is even more expensive: you start with 30 slots and increasing it to 40 will cost 1,000 gold. Second upgrade is already priced at 3,300 gold.

Since there are no item “stacks” in TESO, meaning it doesn’t matter if you carry around 1 or 50 Iron Ore, it will only take 1 slot in your inventory. Therefore, I’d recommend keeping such crafting materials always on your character, since storing them both in your bank and your character would use 2 slots instead of just one (you’ll quickly find more of the same materials). I usually use my bank to store enchanting runes, trait gems, items for research, and various other misc items I don’t need to carry with me. Alternate equipment is usually best kept on your character since it may not always be convenient to hop to a bank and pick them up.

Conclusion

Expanding your inventory space is definitely worth it, especially early on in the game. Once you start carrying dozens of different runes, herbs, food, potions, and alternate items, you will quickly run out of space. Making frequent trips to vendors and bankers can get tedious, so once you have your first mount make sure you spend most of your gold to increase inventory and bank space.

• Recommended: Easy ways to earn gold in ESO (external, free guide) – easy to follow tips which can net you over 10,000g a day

Looking for ways to earn gold in TESO? Read this guide and find out how to earn enough gold keep expanding your inventory size every few levels and still have more than enough enough to easily purchase your mount by level 20.