Why you should trust us
I’m a staff writer covering home and decor at Wirecutter, and I specialize in solutions for small homes and apartments. I have written about ideas for tiny bedrooms, little bathrooms, and compact entryways. And for this article, I’ve talked to designers and organization specialists.
I have lived with a small closet for many years. As a kid, I shared one with my sister. Then I had several small closets in New York City and Los Angeles (currently, I have a normal-size closet but no space for a dresser).
For this guide, I tested dozens of products in my own home — drilling into my own walls and trying solutions out in my own closet. I pulled additional product recommendations from my colleagues’ testing and reporting across Wirecutter. Finally, I also interviewed three organizing experts, to get their tips and insights:
- Jamie Hord, founder of Horderly Professional Organizing
- Kat Green, owner of Badass Homelife and an ADHD organizing specialist
- Corey Pence, senior manager of in-home organizing at The Container Store
Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards here.
Go vertical
With a small closet especially, it’s important to not squander precious vertical space. Remember to look up and down to find inspiration — whether that means using the existing closet frame to hang small accessories or adding more shelf space with a hanging organizer.
Handsome hooks: Drop Metal Modern J Hook
Top pick
Made in Alabama, the Drop Metal Modern J Hook comes in 10 powder-coated colors. And this hook is among the few I found that managed to look cute, hold lots of items, and still be relatively affordable. The rounded edges are gentle on clothing, and the generous hook (around 2 inches deep) can easily hold belts, scarves, or purses. Each one comes with two anchors and two color-matched, powder-coated screws. My only complaint is that shipping costs $8, but the price is fair if you buy several hooks at once.
Affordable hooks: Franklin Brass Wall Hooks
Top pick
My current apartment came with the painted-over remains of the previous tenant’s budget wall-hook solution (aka a single screw jutting out). But the Franklin Brass Wall Hooks are much prettier, less likely to snag your clothes, and nearly as affordable. When they’re hung from wooden studs, these hooks have a 35-pound weight capacity. But they’re fine to use with just the included screws and anchors, since they’re better suited to holding small items like belts, jewelry, baseball caps, and purses. I like that the white finish blends into my closet walls, and they also come in black, brass, and nickel finishes.
A hanging organizer: The Container Store 6-Compartment Hanging Wide Closet Organizer
Top pick
Of the three models we tested, The Container Store’s 6-Compartment Hanging Wide Closet Organizer is the best option for storing linens or keeping folded clothes in order. Unlike most hanging organizers, this one is made from a poly-cotton blend, which provides better breathability than those made from only plastic. Home decor editor Daniela Gorny, who’s been packing this hanging organizer “to the brim” for the past seven years, reports that it remains as sturdy as ever.
For an all-plastic budget version (which is less breathable), I’ve been using IKEA’s Skubb organizer for four years, and I’ve found that it’s also stable against rocking. It connects to your closet rod with Velcro, but it comes in only one length (versus The Container Store model’s three- and six-compartment options). So if you want to use a shoe rack, there’s not much room below this organizer.
A wobble-free shoe rack: Seville Classics 3-Tier Resin Slatted Shoe Rack
Top pick
Too often, shoes have no place to go. So they end up piled high on your floor, and it becomes nearly impossible to find a pair when you’re getting dressed. Of the many shoe racks we tested for our guide, the Seville Classics 3-Tier Resin Slatted Shoe Rack seems the best suited for life in a closet. It’s not the prettiest of our shoe-rack suggestions, but if it’s hidden in a closet, looks don’t really matter. This extra-sturdy rack has wide, closely placed slats, so it’s easy to store everything from high heels to baby shoes. We also like that this model is stackable, so you can quickly add vertical storage and use it to store more than just shoes.
Optimize your closet door
If you have a swinging door (as opposed to an accordion-style or pocket door), then celebrate your good fortune and use it. For hidden storage, pick an organizer that hangs on the inside of the door. For the clothes and accessories you like to look at, choose a pretty rack that hangs on the outside.
Easy hanging cubbies: Target Brightroom Over The Door 26 Shelf Mesh Shoe Organizer
Top pick
With its 26 mesh cubbies, the Target Brightroom Over The Door shoe organizer is great for corralling your footwear, among other things. Each cubby is 4.5 by 11 by 5.5 inches (HWD), and this is just enough space to stash an individual sneaker or a pair of slim sandals or flats (anything above a woman’s size 11 will peek out). Beyond holding shoes, this cubby is also wonderful for storing clothing items that you can roll up (such as T-shirts, leggings, and athletic shorts). Or you can do as senior engineering manager Polina Grinbaum does: Use the organizer to store “the random stuff that causes the chaos,” which, for Polina, includes evening bags, belts, and swimsuit coverups. This organizer is 67 inches long and 22 inches wide.
Straight hanging: Target Brightroom Over the Door Tiered Towel Rack with Wood
Top pick
I originally tested Target’s Brightroom Over the Door Tiered Towel Rack for our guide to small bathroom storage. But it wasn’t quite up to the task (the rods are too close together, so towels get crowded and don’t dry easily). For hanging thinner fabric items, Target’s Brightroom Over the Door Tiered Towel Rack with Wood is ideal. You can drape scarves or neckties over it, so you can see everything and quickly grab what you want. And the two deep hooks at the bottom are also handy for hanging a few belts, necklaces, or baseball caps. The rack’s hooks are less than 2 inches deep, but they fit over a standard closet door without any rattling.
Minimalist over-the-door rack: Yamazaki Home Over-the-Door Hanger
Top pick
Thanks to its simple design, the high-quality steel Yamazaki Home Over-the-Door Hanger blends in with most decor (it comes in powder-coated white or black). The five hooks hang about 2 inches below the top of the door, so items are up and out of the way. In our testing, it fit securely over most doors without wiggling. The hooks have about 2 inches of space between them, so the rack is best for smaller items like baseball hats and tote bags. Hang it outside your closet door for easy access to items, or place it inside to keep stuff private and hide clutter.
Make things readily accessible (and visible)
When your hangers are all the same and pointed in the same direction, your closet will look more streamlined. “A good rule of thumb is to hang anything that wrinkles easily, like dresses, blouses, skirts, and slacks, while folding sturdier pieces like denim, sweaters, T-shirts, and athleisure,” said Corey Pence, senior manager of in-home organizing at The Container Store. For the items that can be folded or rolled, make sure they’re visible, and consider systems to prevent them from shifting and getting lost on top of each other. Good lighting helps, too.
Slim, nonslip hangers: Amazon Basics Slim Velvet Hangers
Budget pick
Slim hangers maximize hanging space, and in our guide, the Amazon Basics Slim Velvet Hangers are our favorite slim hangers. They’re affordable yet sturdy, and they don’t shed as much flocking as other velvet hangers we tested.
If you’d prefer a non-velvet option that looks a bit more elegant, and you’re willing to pay more, we also love Mawa’s Space-Saving Hangers. This model is made with a steel rod coated in PVC, to keep garments from slipping.
And if you prefer pants-specific hangers that make it easy to hang and remove garments, we like The Container Store’s Chrome Metal Pant Hangers. Similar in design to the Mawa pant hanger, these hangers have a PVC nonslip coating; it keeps pants in place, yet it’s still simple to slip pants on and off. Keep in mind, however, that the thinner bar may cause some creasing.
Slim, breathable shelf dividers: Lynk Tall Shelf Dividers
Top pick
Shelf dividers are helpful for keeping piles of clothes or linens tidy and purses or tote bags upright. Of the five models we tested, the Lynk Tall Shelf Dividers (made of a coated heavy-gauge steel) are the sturdiest ones we found. A few staff members have owned the Lynk dividers for several years, and they report that the dividers have held up well and kept their closets calm and organized. These dividers work for shelves up to 0.75 inch thick, and since they’re slim, you’ll have slightly more space for your clothes. To avoid chipping painted shelves, be careful when you are removing the dividers.
Stackable shelf bins: The Container Store Clearline Open Bin
Top pick
Instead of creating a precarious pile of sweaters that inevitably topples over every time you grab one, you might consider The Container Store’s Clearline Open Bins, which let you stack stuff in a high heap that actually stays neat. Because these bins are completely transparent, you can find what you need from all angles. The Container Store sells each bin and lid separately, so you can customize the height. I’ve used mine in two Los Angeles apartments for the past three years, without any plastic cracking or snags on my sweaters.
See better: MCGOR 10 inch Under Cabinet Lighting
Top pick
Most closets can benefit from a little extra lighting. Easier to use and cheaper than figuring out wiring, a battery-powered light will let you see more clearly, so you’ll waste less time digging around in vain for what you want. The MCGOR 10-inch lights are a cinch to install and impressively bright. They are sold in a set of two, and each light can be toggled between four brightness levels. The lights can be set to on, off, or “auto,” for motion activation, and you can attach them magnetically or with an included adhesive strip. They charge via USB-C (cables included), so you can easily detach them when they need to get charged. Considering the price of each light, the motion-sensor capability is impressive (it lags just a second or two after I open the closet), and it goes back to dark about 30 seconds later. (As the battery drains, over a few weeks, this dwindles down to about 19 seconds, and probably lower, until the battery runs out completely.)
Tame your drawers
If you’re lucky enough to have space in your closet for a dresser, get the most out of your drawers by installing dividers that let you see where everything is at a glance.
Drawer organizers: The Container Store 4″ Dream Drawer Organizers
Top pick
The Container Store’s 4″ Dream Drawer Organizers are slim and simple to adjust, whether you need to divide your drawers vertically or horizontally. A spring-loaded mechanism adjusts to fit drawers from 12 to 18 inches deep and at least 4 inches high. (The smaller dividers, which attach perpendicularly to further subdivide the space, are sold separately.) Wide T-shaped panels at either end help the Dream Drawer Organizers stay in place without taking up too much drawer space, so they’re easy to slip in and out when you’re rearranging things. In long-term testing, however, we’ve found that some clothes can get snagged when we’re arranging them, so keep an eye on delicate items.
Organizers for narrow drawers: OXO Good Grips Expandable Drawer Divider
Top pick
The OXO Good Grips Expandable Drawer Dividers are slightly smaller than The Container Store’s organizers above, so the OXO dividers are a good option for narrow drawers. They’re easy to expand, and the lock feature hasn’t budged once in the weeks that I’ve pulled my socks and underwear from around it (nor has it snagged on anything). However, these dividers can’t be subdivided like The Container Store dividers can. And they cost a bit more, but they’re made of thicker plastic.
Find a “satellite” closet
As Jamie Hord explains, “With a small closet, you have to keep prime real estate and not prime real estate in mind.” This means if something’s an off-season item, or it’s something you don’t use regularly, it doesn’t need to be at the front of your closet. Instead, store those items high up in the closet, under your bed, or in another room. (You may not, however, store things in your oven, no matter how much you look up to Carrie Bradshaw.)
Sturdy, stackable storage: Iris Under Bed Drawer
Top pick
The Iris Under Bed Drawer glides smoothly, so it’s easy for me to pull things out every day without going batty. And it’s just under 6 inches tall and 30 inches deep, so this drawer will likely fit under your bed, but it can just as easily be used in a closet. Be cautious of overfilling it or pulling the drawer out too far, though, because the unit tips forward slightly. My drawer unit arrived with a corner of plastic chipped off, and it wasn’t a big enough issue to warrant my replacing it. But if you’ve received one that has endured a similarly rocky journey to your doorstep, The Container Store has a very accommodating three-month return policy.
Suck it up: Spacesaver Vacuum Storage Bags
Top pick
Although we generally prefer plastic bins or blanket bags for storing clothes and bedding, vacuum bags can be a decent option if your storage is really tight. Compared with the other bags we tested, the Spacesaver Vacuum Storage Bags shrank stuff faster, and they looked better. They also held their seal better when shrinking down a big pile of fluffy bedding, pillows, and clothes. Staff writer Jackie Reeve has used these bags since 2018 to ship test bedding around the country, and she said she’s never received a complaint that products arrived dirty, wet, or otherwise damaged. She also used them for a cross-country move and reported that while they were fine overall, after a few months in storage, some of the bags lost their vacuum seal. However, if you’re planning on storing foam or down-filled items for over a year, these bags are not ideal, since items can get permanently deflated or deformed.
Heavy-duty bins: Iris WeatherPro Storage Box 41-Qt
Top pick
Ideal for long-term storage in a finished basement or garage, the Iris WeatherPro Storage Box 41-Qt is made from plastic and has a sturdy lid. And to keep the lid securely fastened, it latches at six different places around all sides (not just at the ends, as on other bins). It was the only bin we tested that gave us confidence it would protect against moths or water sneaking in. For a cross-country move, one of our editors used Iris WeatherPro boxes to protect items she didn’t trust hauling in a cardboard box, and the bins worked perfectly. Keep in mind that if you live in very cold climates and are planning to use these boxes in an unfinished space, the plastic can get brittle and crack. In our guide to storage containers, we also recommend a few other airtight and weatherproof options.
What about closet systems?
If you want a modular system of cubbies and shelves that you don’t have to drill into your walls, we like ClosetMaid’s Stackable Vertical Organizers. Their quality is better, and there are more pieces available than with other modular systems we considered. The pieces are solid: Although they’re made from laminate particle board, they hold up just fine. A Wirecutter writer has used an older version of this system for 11 years in her closet and sewing studio without issue. The organizers include shoe cubbies and shelves, plus various cubby units that you can mix and match to create the setup you need. This system doesn’t include a closet rod, though, so you may want to keep the one you have and use these freestanding pieces to maximize the floor space.
In the coming months, we’ll be testing more closet systems — including IKEA’s wall-mounted Boaxel Wardrobe Combination and The Container Store’s Elfa Closet — for a dedicated guide.
This article was edited by Daniela Gorny and Joanne Chen.
Sources
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Jamie Hord, founder of Horderly Professional Organizing, email interview, July 4, 2025
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Kat Green, owner of Badass Homelife and ADHD organizing specialist, email interview, July 9, 2025
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Corey Pence, senior manager of in-home organizing at The Container Store, email interview, July 11, 2025
