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In Skyrim, as with most RPGs, I find myself overwhelmed by a compulsive desire to obtain all of the things. All of them. To this end, I wound up picking up five iron warhammers...only to find out that I had exceeded my maximum weight carrying capacity and that my character had been slowed to a snail's pace. This simply cannot do: I need to make sure I have as much storage space as possible so I can sell as much as possible and become rich quickly. How do I increase the amount of storage space my character can carry? Alternatively, is there a way to disable this system altogether? I find it very annoying.

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  • 4
    There's a kleptomaniac in every RPG player.
    – Fadeway
    Commented Apr 15, 2012 at 10:35
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    I find the following youtube clip very relevant to this discussion.
    – Alderath
    Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 19:11
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    You're going to punch yourself later after you've spent all those non-refundable perks just to augment your carry weight. Now on my fifth play-through, I've found that it's better to max out your smithing so you don't feel the urge to clear every Dwemer ruin of its heavy scrap metal. Learn the Daedra banishing enchantment and sell iron daggers for 1,000+ gold. You can do all this before the need for fortified carry weight comes into play. Also, pack smart. Calculate an item's weight/value ratio and ditch anything with a low ratio regardless how high its value is.
    – oscilatingcretin
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 23:41
  • penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/14
    – Nigralbus
    Commented Apr 2, 2013 at 13:59

15 Answers 15

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  • When you level up, if you select stamina, you will increase your carry weight by 5 pounds.
  • Also for 3 perk points, you can get the Extra Pockets perk in the Pickpocket tree which increases your carrying capacity by 100. This perk does require 50 skill in Pickpocket.
  • The Light Armor and Heavy armor trees have perks that let your armor become weightless.
    • Weightless Heavy Armor costs 4 perks, and needs 70 skill.
    • Weightless Light Armor costs 3 perks, and 50 skill.
  • There are pieces of armor with the 'Fortify Carry Weight' enchantment
  • There are 6 alchemical ingredients with the 'Fortify Carry Weight' property and potions of the same name.
  • Finally, if you can find it, the Steed Stone will also increase how much you can carry.
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  • Is this the only factor that influences it? How about my race and perks?
    – Mana
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 6:42
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    @Mana: Races are the same, aside from skill bonuses and special powers. The light/heavy armor trees have perks to reduce the weight of armor that you are wearing.
    – Arkive
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 6:46
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    There are also a couple of items which increase carry weight. For example, I have a mask (can't remember the name, got it from some hard as skeleton starting with a V) that increases my carry weight by 20.
    – Mr Smooth
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 3:58
  • @MrSmooth Good point. Added to the answer.
    – Arkive
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 5:25
  • Orcs have higher stamina therefore more carry weight at the beginning
    – Alex Brin
    Commented Nov 15, 2017 at 13:13
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Or use the console command player.modav carryweight x where x is the desired number and this way you can carry how much you want.

Or you can wait for a mod after the construction set is available.

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    Note: this is PC only
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 13:55
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    tgm (ToggleGodMode) will remove encumbrance, but will also have the side effect of making the player invincible.
    – Arkive
    Commented Nov 11, 2011 at 18:35
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    Actually X in the above is added to your current carry weight. So if you could carry 300 and ran player.modav carryweight 1000 you would be able to carry 1300. Just double checked it in current steam version of the game.
    – Red_Tractor
    Commented Nov 13, 2011 at 17:19
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    You can use player.setav instead of player.modav to set an exact value (as opposed to adding/subtracting from the current one).
    – Aarobot
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 3:03
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    According to this, modifications made with player.setav only remain during that session of game play. In other words, if you save your game and come back later, the modifications will be gone. Modifications made with player.modav, on the other hand, will remain persistant.
    – MaleficMarauder
    Commented Jan 18, 2012 at 3:40
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Pickpocket perk of Extra Pockets allows +100 carry weight

Heavy Armor perk of Cushioned allows worn heavy armor to weight nothing (and no movement penalty)

Light Armor perk similar to Cushioned for same effect for light armor. I find that getting the light armor perk also applies to heavy armor (favorable bug in my X360 version)

Steed Stone active gives +100 carry weight

Upgrading your Stamina gives +5 carry weight (equipment with +stamina doesn't)

Equipment enchanted with Carry Weight gives +x carry weight. Qualifying equipment that can be worn at same time includes Gloves, Boots, Necklace, and Ring. You can get +40 on each of those once you have 100 enchantment, use a grand soul, and Enchanter's Philfer. ...

Get a house ASAP so you can put your unused, heavy, don't want to sell items safely in chest or special display (book shelves, weapon racks, or mannequins)

Get a follower that can carry your extra crap. They don't seem to benefit from armor extra carry perks so give them light armor and light weapons. The armor you give them has to be better than their "default" for them to wear it which means you will need to Smith upgrade or Enchant upgrade to get them to use light armor over their default heavy in some cases. ...

My advise is to only carry what you need. Don't worry about money, once you can Enchant, Smith, or Alchemy at high levels you will be making more money than you know what to do with.

For skill upgrades, I recommend you focus on Speech and Alchemy in terms of trainers. You can pickpocket them after each paid training (provided good enough pickpocketing). Don't do multiple pickpockets as the chance to pickpocket successfully is inversely proportional to value to be swiped. Save often in this scenario as 90% success seems to be the cap. The perk to steal coins more easily might be worth your effort or enchanted apparel for pickpocketing (like what you get for joining Thieves Guild) or potions.

~500-1000 gold for training + pickpocket seems like too good a way to basically upgrade two skills (the one you paid and pickpocketing) very quickly.

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Your companions such as Lydia can also carry items for you if you talk to them and select can you carry something (or something to that effect). This is also how you would give them new armor or weapons, they will equip anything better than what they are currently using.

Also, use the "I want you to do something for me" statement on your companion. You can have them take the entire contents of an unlocked box or just throw your burdens on the ground and have them pick it up. Companions have unlimited carryweight this way.

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  • I've not seen this and tried speaking a few times.
    – Layke
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 9:41
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    they have to be following you, and then you talk to them and use the dialog option that says something about "trading items" (it's a little different for each character). I hate having followers kill monsters I wanted to kill, but I do love having them carry around my loot.
    – sXe
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 17:50
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If you're encumbered, riding a horse will allow you to fast-travel. While the horse can't carry anything itself, it does make it a little easier if you're outside and encumbered.

Another idea, once you find the enchantment, is to enchant clothes (they have minimal weight) with "carrying" enchants. This way, if you get encumbered, you can don on a piece of clothing to help.

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    A very important point too... encumbered, you cannot fast travel - but on a horse you can...
    – CJM
    Commented Jun 17, 2012 at 23:36
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There are different boots that can improve the maximum amount of weight you can carry:

  • Imperial Boots of Lifting
  • Leather Boots of Lifitng
  • Hide Boots of Lifting

If I remember well you can get one as a prize for the main quest in Whiterun, but I also found them looting around.

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    The Whiterun quest rewards random loot. The important thing to note here is that there's a +carrying capacity enchantment available.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Nov 14, 2011 at 1:43
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There is another option, called the Steed Stone. It's one of thirteen guardian stones which, if you visit and activate them, give you perks. The seed stone is located due west of the Thalmor Embassy, at the very top of that tall mountain you can see on the map. Climb up the mountain, and you'll find a large stone. Just press "E" to activate it, and you receive carry weight + 100, I believe, and your armor becomes weightless.

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Or get a horse to carry your crap for you

... if only you could send your companion to sell your stuff (torchlight style).

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Another way you can increase the amount you can carry, but only temporarily, which hasn't been mentioned yet is a Fortify Carry Weight potion. Ingredients for a Fortify Carry Weight potion include; Creep Cluster, Giant's Toe, Hawk Beak, River Betty, Scaly Pholiata and Wisp Wrappings.

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Just cheat: press ~ on your keyboard and type player.modav carryweight 700

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There is an amulet which increases your stamina, health and magic by 30 points. It's a massive pain to get it as you have to do 3 missions.

The amulet's name was Gauldur amulet and you can get it by doing the Forbidden Legends quest.

Forbidden Legends walkthrough

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Restoration/alchemy exploit still works on ps3 update 1.8

Make fortify restoration potions, drink, undress alchemy gear and dress it again, gulp another restoration potion, repeat several times, keep checking your alchemy gear effect under active effects menu. Then if high enough, create +40,000% enchanting potions, and drink before enchanting carry weight gear. I carry hundreds of books and weapons... With 32,000 point carry weight boots. I'm only at 4,500 now and I guess you only need 1,000 before you're gonna get annoyed at the slow loading times anyways.

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First, join the thieves guild to get the armor. Do all the quests they ask you to do, and eventually you will be asked which piece of armor you want upgraded. Tell her you want the chest part upgraded as this is the one with carry weight plus. From here you can either do the alchemy glitch and make the enchantment really strong, or you can duplicate the armor and do the multiple armor glitch. Here are links for all three glitches:

I recommend the duplicate armor then multiple armor glitch. It is much easier and requires little to no money.

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    This answer does not add anything that is not already in other answers.
    – ChargingPun
    Commented May 17, 2013 at 13:25
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To add to the other answers, if playing on the PC, you might want to install mods, instead (so all your characters will automatically have increased carry weight).

One of the mods that can do that is 100x Your Carry Weight - or 10x or 25x.

There are other mods that implement this in different ways like increasing carry weight you gain from Stamina, or adding an 'Increase carry weight' spell found by searching Skyrim Nexus.

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Use the fortify restoration exploit and enchant armor with Fortify Carry Weight to get like 40,000 carry weight and never worry about it again...

^^Really only for console since your practically cheating, and might as well use console codes if on PC

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    Didn't they patch this exploit?
    – kotekzot
    Commented Oct 5, 2012 at 6:16
  • I know this comment is 7 years old, but the exploit is still unpatched
    – PausePause
    Commented Nov 11, 2019 at 18:11

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