BoardGameGeek is where most collectors keep their record: what they own, what they want, what they've played. It's a good record and a hard thing to use at a friend's table on a phone. This is how to have the same collection in your pocket, without typing any of it in again.
1. Find your BGG username
It's the name you sign in to BoardGameGeek with, not your email. The quickest way to check: open your collection on BGG and look at the address, which ends in /collection/user/ and then your name.
GameChest reads your collection as BGG shows it to anyone under that name. What you keep in BGG's private fields, like what you paid, isn't part of it.
2. Bring it in
Make a GameChest account (it's free, with no ads), go to Import, type the username and press the button. BGG builds big collections on their side first, so a few hundred games can take up to a minute.
- Owned games arrive as Have; owned and for trade, as Have and Selling.
- Pre-ordered games arrive as Pre-ordered.
- Previously owned games arrive as Had (sold), so the history stays.
- Your wishlist arrives on your Radar as Want to buy, except games at priority 5, “Don't buy this”, which stay out.
- Expansions are marked as expansions, so they don't pad the count.
- Games you only rated or logged a play of aren't imported as shelf games.
The whole mapping is on the BoardGameGeek feature page.
Your logged plays come separately, from Settings → BGG, if you want them. No BGG account at all? Search and add games one by one, paste a list of names, or photograph your shelf.
3. What you can do with it on the phone
- Find a game fast. Filter the shelf by players, time and weight, and it updates as you tap, with no loading.
- Pick tonight's game. Tick who's here and say how long you've got, and it answers from every shelf at the table, saying whose box each game is. Or ask in plain words: “something for five, under an hour”.
- Decide what to let go of. Duplicates, expansions whose base game has gone, near-twins, games a friend wants, each with the reason. Nothing is decided for you.
- Watch your wishlist. Set a target price on a game and get an email when an eBay UK listing turns up at or under it.
- See friends' shelves. Swap a code with a friend and you see each other's games, and who's selling what the other wants. Never what anyone paid, and never their notes.
4. Keep BGG in step, if you want to
Changes you make in GameChest can go back to your BGG collection. Before anything is sent, you see exactly what will change. Your BGG password is used once for that and never stored. Or leave BGG as it is: the import doesn't touch it.
What it isn't
It isn't a replacement for BoardGameGeek: the game data is BGG's, and ratings, comments and the forums stay there. It isn't a marketplace either. Selling happens on eBay, BGG's own marketplace or wherever you already sell; GameChest writes the listing and keeps the record.