Helvault - MTG Scanner

This is a great app for cataloging, tracking, and scanning your mtg collection. The scans are quick and easy (albeit with some minor issues trying to scan certain full art cards and basic lands) and allow you to easily pick the specific set that the card comes from. This is my go to app for cataloging cards, especially because there are only one time payments for the pro perks, which is something I really like since I am an avid hater of subscription services. I only have a few complaints regarding the app, which is why I am giving 4 stars. My main issue is the lack of filters when searching cards. As of right now, you can only filter cards by which set they are in (MH3, Darkmourn, etc.) it would be really helpful if the filters were expanded upon. Filtering by card type, color(s), mana cost, creature type, alongside the specific set would be super good for finding certain kinds of cards if you’re looking for something more general. Another issue I have with the search function is that it only looks for the words in the name of the card for whatever words you typed in the search bar. It would be very useful if this were expanded to include all the words on the card. For example, if I wanted to look at golem creatures I could just type ‘Golem’ in the search and it would pull up all the cards with golem written on them. This last point is a bit of a nitpick but it would be cool to be able to build and manage decks in the app. These are all small issues in the long run. If the app were left as is, I would still find myself using it as my main card cataloging system, these changes would just be nice to see :)

For years now, I’ve used Helvault to manage my Magic The Gathering inventory. It’s rock solid. It’s never failed me. I have close to 30,000 cards stored in the database and I’ve seen no visible lag. The card scanner is very good (although some of the special treatment cards are sometimes difficult to scan). The interface is simple and clean The exporting of data is reliable and has different export types. The different viewing modes are nice but I would like to see a slider that scales them to different sizes. I would also love to see the inclusion of Skyfall syntax in the search function so I could refine my own collection searches within the app to things beyond card name. Keep up the good work!

Overall, this is a decent app at a reasonable price. I have not had issues with updates that others claim to have (the lifetime purchase not carrying over). However, my gripe is with seemingly basic features. For example: You can NOT move cards between binders easily and in-bulk. As of Feb. 3rd, 2024, the only way it seems you can move a card from one binder to another, is to add a copy to the new binder. Then, go and delete the original. This makes no sense, and is incredibly time consuming. There’s also a bug: when you leave the app, sometimes the gear icon (which has the settings to rename a binder) just disappears. You must restart the app or switch to another and come back, to restore it. Again, this app is about saving time. This sort of stuff should not be plaguing it.