When you first start playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’re pretty limited to space in your backpack. You’ll be limited to 20 slots, which will fill up quickly considering most items including fish, bugs and fossils don’t stack.
Thankfully, it is possible to increase your inventory size. If you can’t increase it though, you can always drop items on the ground in your house/tent. They won’t de-spawn, it’s especially useful to display fish and bugs in order to save inventory space.
This guide was created during the first week of Animal Crossing: New Horizons release on the Nintendo Switch. Depending on when you’re reading this guide, some thing may be different due to future updates. However we’ll always try to come back and update these guides! For more of our Animal Crossing: New Horizons Guides & Best-of lists, make sure to check out our dedicated area here!
Increasing Inventory Size
You won’t be able to upgrade your backpack until you’ve paid Tom Nook the 5,000 Miles back for your move-in fees. Doing so will give you access to the Nook Miles Redemption service, which allows you to buy new items such as Hairstyles, Airline Tickets and other upgrades. So make sure to do this first.
Interact with the Nook Machine in the main tent, and choose ‘Redeem Nook Miles’. Look for the Pocket Organization Guide. It costs 5,000 Nook Miles, which is a lot, and may take quite a while to save for. Make sure to complete as many challenges as possible, as well as any under the Nook Miles+ Program.
Once you’ve bought the Pocket Organization Guide, your backpack’s inventory size will be instantly increased to give you an additional 10 slots. If you have upgraded from a tent to a house, then your house will also have built-in storage you can use.
