I’m Switching from Bosch L-Boxx Tool Boxes

Bosch L-Boxx tool boxes, made by Sortimo, worked great as Systainer alternatives.

L-Boxx cases are fairly strong and robust enough for portable and long-term storage and organizational needs, and affordable too.

They aren’t weather-sealed, which caused minor problems for me over time, but I blamed myself for not protecting the contents better.

Bosch sent along quite a few test samples, and I also bought a lot. I took advantage of Amazon’s holiday season deals, especially on L-Boxx organizers, which were especially cost-effective. I dumped the removable bins into a carboard box for later use, and used the cases for tools.

The inserts have certainly came in handy over the years, except for the non-rectangular grey ones.

I used holiday season promos, such as $50 off $200 or similar, to buy larger tool cases and dollies.

My collection steadily grew for a couple of years. I don’t recall the final tally, but I believe I had more than 80 at one point.

I purchased my last Bosch L-Boxx products in late-2013, with the exception of cross-functional Sortimo rails and sliding drawers.

I used my vast collection of Bosch L-Boxxes for daily and long-term storage over many years. The modularity worked perfectly, for a while.

10 years ago, I had limited space, and prioritized what I kept close at-hand.

It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

One L-Boxx, for example, held my spare circular saw, miter saw, and jig saw blades. Others held my pipe and tubing tools, metal forming tools, rotary tools and accessories, and so forth.

Accessories such as box clamps are still perfectly stored in L-Boxxes. If I need more than the 4 that are always kept in my workshop tool cabinet, I bring out my L-Boxx full of box clamps and their pieces from the basement.

They kept me well-organized.

However, they’re no longer working well for me.

Over the past few years, I have been greatly reducing my number of Bosch L-Boxxes for the sake of greater efficiency.

I cannot say that I have been perfectly pleased with my Bosch L-Boxxes over the years either. Shown here is one of the two latches found on every box.

Here it is, open.

I could never trust my L-Boxxes to hold a lot of weight. These thin plastic latches feel as flimsy as they look. They held alright, but can bend and wear over time.

There’s a workaround. I don’t carry heavy L-Boxx cases by their top handles, I carry them from their side handles or from the bottom.

But as I move from L-Boxxes to drawers, industrial bins, and other tool box systems (mainly Milwaukee Packout), I have been unwilling to repurpose the L-Boxxes for new tasks. There are far better tool boxes nowadays.

The side latches work well to auto-connect one L-Boxx to another, but only if they are perfectly aligned.

It’s not effortless to align L-Boxxes together for stacking. If you don’t get everything just right, you have to lift the box and try again. And again. And again.

This has been my greatest frustration with them, so much so that sometimes I give up and simply rotate a box 90° to leave it unsecured across the top of a stack.

There is a perfect load weight and stacking height at which it’s quick and easy to connect L-Boxxes together. If you’re not at that sweet spot, which has been a frequent occurrence for me over the years, it’s a hassle.

I considered building a rack for them, but never committed. I built a rack to hold my industrial bins a few years ago, and I had doubts that an L-Boxx rack would work well for me, given the types of tools and supplies I still keep in them.

My L-Boxxes have become inefficient for my needs, and I don’t like using them anymore.

Frequent Bosch promotions allowed me to gradually built up an inventory of L-Boxxes at reasonable pricing. They were great as portable tool boxes, parts boxes, and similar, as well as long-term storage.

The Bosch L-Boxx system provided smaller modular tool boxes that are easier to individually organize and transport. It’s not easy to replace them with anything other than like-sized tool boxes, such as Tstak or Tanos and Festool Systainers.

But now, retrieval is a chore. I have the space for drawer systems, and so that’s what I’m moving more towards – drawers and shelves.

I will likely keep a tower or two of Bosch L-Boxxes for specific storage needs, but I can’t say I would buy them again today.

Storage needs change.

I think drawers and cabinets are a better solution for me right now, in addition to the Packout boxes I’ve been using for certain power tools. Maybe I’ll keep build a rack for some of my remaining L-Boxxes.

But with respect to portability, I have been spoiled by my Festool Systainers and Milwaukee Packout tool boxes and organizers. Even Dewalt ToughSystem has proven to be easier to use. I can get to the bottom of a stack of heavily loaded Packout tool boxes in a fraction of the time as with L-boxxes.

Sometimes I need to bring an entire box with me, other times I need just a single tool or part. Some tools or accessories are better kept in a tool box, bin, box or similar, such as my pocket hole job and its accoutrements, which I don’t use often enough to justify limited drawer space to.

I started moving away from Bosch L-Boxxes 2-3 years ago. I have been frustrated with their latches, stacking, and stack removal performance for a while. But, I already owned them, and wasn’t sure what system to move to next.

It was moving contents from L-Boxxes to storage cabinet drawers that set me down this path.

I didn’t want to give away or donate any of my L-Boxxes at first, but my stack of unused boxes kept growing. It didn’t make sense to store empty tool boxes I no longer needed and couldn’t imagine needing in the future, so off they went.

I will likely end up donating all of my L-Boxxes.

The “what if I need them again?” mentality is hard to shake,

But, if that happens, I can go with Dewalt Tstak instead of L-Boxx for modular tool boxes on a budget. Their smallest tool boxes are $22 each (at the time of this posting, via Amazon). Although they have manually-adjusted side latches, they end up working quicker than L-Boxxes.

The only benefit to L-Boxx these days is that Sortimo offers van-racking solutions and accessories.

I envisioned adding a small cart with slide-out drawers to my workshop, for my L-Boxxes to go back and forth as different projects required. That would be a good implementation for this. But I still need far fewer L-Boxxes than I currently have.

They’re not bad tool boxes, they’re just not as great for my needs and preferences anymore. Would I buy them again today? No. There are more solutions than ever before – including much better ones – and discount structures have changed to where there is little incentive based on price.