Getting started with Archivium

What is Archivium?

Archivium is a home for any collection — books, watches, fountain pens, vinyl records, stamps, coins, and more — with a type built for each one, and beautiful themes to match.

The key idea is that Archivium adapts to whatever you collect. A collection type defines which details matter — for books that might be author and ISBN, for watches it might be case size and reference number. This means Archivium works just as well for a library of 5,000 books as it does for a carefully curated set of 12 watches.

Creating an account

1. Go to my.archivium.art/register.
2. Enter your name, email address, username, and a strong password.
3. Check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the verification link.
4. You'll be taken directly to your dashboard on first login.

Your first collection

From the dashboard, click New Collection (or press N).

1. Choose a collection type — pick a ready-made type that matches what you collect, or browse the marketplace for more types from the community.
2. Name your collection — e.g. "My Books", "Watch Collection 2024".
3. Choose a theme — each collection type has a suggested default theme, or pick any available theme.
4. Click Create. Your collection appears on the dashboard as a tile.

You can change the theme and cover image at any time from the collection settings.

Adding items

Open a collection and click Add Item (or press N while inside a collection).

The form is organised into a few natural groups: the essentials at the top, then key specifics, how you acquired it, and tags. Fill in as many or as few fields as you need — nothing is mandatory.

Adding a Vinyl Records item? A Discogs lookup panel appears next to the Catalogue number field — search by catalogue number, barcode, or artist and title to auto-fill the album, label, year, format, and genre, plus the full track listing. Add, reorder, or edit tracks by hand any time in the item's Track List section, with a dedicated Tracks tab showing the finished list.

Save with Save item. The new item appears immediately in the browse view.

Collection types explained

A collection type is the blueprint for a kind of collection. It defines:

• Fields — the specific details you track, like title, author, condition, or photos.
• How it's displayed — Archivium automatically knows which field is the title, which photo to feature, and which details to highlight, so every theme looks right no matter what you collect.
• Room to grow — collection types can evolve over time, and your existing items update safely whenever they do.

Archivium comes with ready-made types for Books, Comics, Vinyl Records, Watches, Fountain Pens, Stamps, Coins, and Banknotes. The marketplace will add even more over time.

Creating your own type

Collect something the ready-made types don't cover? On the Archivist plan, open My Schemas from your account menu to build your own.

1. Customize a built-in type — start from the closest existing type (e.g. Books) and adjust its fields, or
2. Start from scratch — build a completely new type field by field.
3. Add, rename, or remove fields any time. Existing items update automatically — nothing is ever lost.
4. Delete a type you own from the same My Schemas screen (built-in types can't be deleted, only customized).

Themes and layouts

Every collection has a theme — a complete visual makeover covering colours, typography, background imagery, and card style. Themes are assigned per collection, not per account, so your book collection and your watch collection can look entirely different. Even the header quietly adapts to match whichever collection you're browsing.

Archivium ships with 7 built-in themes: Vintage Library, Modern Library, Dark Velvet Display, Light Velvet Display, Museum Gallery, Leather Workshop, and Leather Binder — more are coming with the marketplace. Each theme also has its own card style (Glass, Elevated, or Outlined).

Within a theme, you can choose a browse layout — Bookshelf, Crate, Velvet, Tray, Album, Sleeve, or the classic Grid and List — 8 in total, each suited to a different kind of collection (Bookshelf for books and vinyl, Velvet for watches and pens, and so on).

Change the theme and layout from the collection's settings panel (gear icon in the collection header).

Search, sort & filter

Search

The search bar in the header becomes context-aware inside a collection — it searches across all text fields of items in that collection. Results update as you type (300 ms debounce). Press / to focus it from anywhere.

Sort

Use the Sort control in the collection browse header to sort by any field in your collection, or by Date Added / Last Updated. Click the direction toggle to reverse the order.

Sorting by title, "The Road" can sort under T or under R — go to Settings → Preferences → Title sorting format to choose whether a leading article counts. This checks articles in all 5 supported languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), regardless of which language your app is currently displayed in, and applies to the browse view and PDF list/catalogue exports alike. It only ever changes sort order — titles always display in full, everywhere.

Filter

Click the Filter button to open filter options. You can filter by:

• Text fields: contains
• Select fields: is one of
• Numeric/Year fields: range (min/max)
• Rating fields: minimum rating
• Boolean fields: is / is not
• Date fields: before / after / between

Active filters appear as chips below the header bar. Click the × on any chip to remove that filter.

Bulk operations

Hover over any item card to reveal a checkbox. Click it to enter multi-select mode. All items will show checkboxes.

• Use Select all in the header to select every item currently visible.
• Use Archive selected to soft-delete items (they move to the archive view).
• Use Delete selected to permanently delete items (with a confirmation dialog).
• Press Escape or click Cancel to exit multi-select mode.

Toolbox

Values drift over time — "J. Tolkien" in one item, "J.R.R. Tolkien" in another. The Toolbox finds and merges inconsistent values across all your collections at once, instead of fixing them item by item.

1. Click the Toolbox icon in the header (or find it in the menu on mobile).
2. Your collections are grouped by collection type — a fix to a shared type applies everywhere it's used, not just the one collection where you spotted it.
3. Switch between the Text fields, Tags, and People tabs to see the variants Archivium found in each.
4. Choose the correct value for each group and confirm the merge.

Every item using a merged variant is updated in one step.

Photo galleries

Each item can have up to 4 photos. One photo is designated as the hero — it appears on the collection browse card, the item view header, and all themed layouts.

1. In the item edit form, click the photo field to open the photo editor.
2. Paste a URL or upload an image file.
3. Use the crop dialog to choose an aspect ratio or draw a custom free-form crop.
4. Add a caption (optional).
5. The first photo is automatically the hero. Click the star icon on any photo to designate a different hero.

In the item view, the gallery strip below the main image shows additional photos. Click any to promote it to the main view (client-side only; the hero designation is unchanged).

Document vault

The Documents tab in an item view lets you store important documents alongside the item — receipts, certificates of authenticity, insurance appraisals, warranty cards, service records, provenance documents.

1. Open an item and click the Documents tab.
2. Click Upload document.
3. Select a PDF or image file (max 20 MB).
4. Choose a document type, add a title, date, and notes.
5. Click Upload.

Documents are stored securely and are never publicly accessible. Use the preview button to view a PDF or image inline without downloading.

Marketplace links

A row of one-click search buttons at the bottom of an item view, pre-filled with that item's title and details — useful for checking current value or finding another copy. An eBay link is added for you automatically the first time you view an item, and works for any collection type.

Go to Settings → Integrations to add more: AbeBooks (Books), Chrono24 (Watches), and Discogs (Vinyl) are ready-made presets, or build a custom link to any site using your collection type's own fields.

Sharing an item

In any item view, click the Share button (or open the ⋯ menu on mobile) to copy the item's key details as formatted plain text — title, subtitles, identifier, key specs, and tags — ready to paste into a message, email, or social post.

Importing data

Go to a collection's settings (gear icon) and choose Import. Archivium supports:

• Collectorz — Books and Comics exports from Collectorz software, including back covers and extended details
• Spreadsheet (CSV) — a simple field-matching screen lets you map your columns; works for any collection type
• Archivium backup — bring in a full export from another Archivium account
• FileMaker (Fountain Pens) — a specialist import for Fountain Pens collections migrating from a FileMaker database

Exporting data

Go to a collection's settings and choose Export. Available formats:

• Spreadsheet (CSV, JSON, or XML) — every item in your collection, with all of its details
• Images ZIP — all featured and gallery photos in a zip archive
• PDF List — compact table with optional thumbnail, title, identifier, key specs; A4 portrait
• PDF Catalogue — full-page layout per item with large cover image and complete metadata; A4 landscape

All export formats are filter-aware — they export exactly the items visible in your current browse view (search, sort, status, and custom filters all applied).

Backup & restore

Go to Settings → Backup.

Manual backup

Click Download backup to download a ZIP containing all your collections, items, preferences, and vault documents. Check Include item photos to bundle your uploaded photos into the ZIP as well.

Cloud backup

Click Back up now to upload a backup to secure cloud storage. You can list, restore from, and delete cloud backups at any time.

Automatic backup

Enable automatic backups with your preferred frequency (Daily / Weekly / Monthly) and set the maximum number of versions to retain. Older backups are pruned automatically.

Restore

Upload a backup ZIP or select a cloud backup and click Restore. Data in the backup is upserted — existing data not in the backup is never deleted.

Account settings

Go to Settings → Account to update:

• Full name — displayed in the UI and on PDF exports
• Username — must be 3–50 characters; letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, and dots only
• Email address — a verification link is sent to the new address before the change takes effect; the old address receives a security notice

Language

Archivium speaks English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, with more of the app being translated all the time.

Go to Settings → Preferences and choose your language from the dropdown — each one is listed by its native name (Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Español) so you can find yours regardless of what language the screen is currently in. Click Save preferences to apply it. Your choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to any device you sign in on.

Security

Go to Settings → Security to change your password.

Archivium requires a strong password with all of the following:

• At least 8 characters
• One uppercase letter (A–Z)
• One lowercase letter (a–z)
• One number (0–9)
• One special character (e.g. ! @ # $)

The password strength meter on the registration and password change screens shows your progress in real time.

If you signed up with Google or Microsoft, you can link or unlink those accounts from Settings → Security. Note that changing your email address will unlink any associated OAuth accounts.

Keyboard shortcuts