What Is The Best App For Finding Coin Lockers In Japan?

What Is The Best App For Finding Coin Lockers In Japan?

The two services worth using are both run by the locker operators themselves: Locker Concierge, Tokyo Metro's live availability service at metro.akilocker.biz, and multiecube.com, JR East Smart Logistics' own site for finding and reserving Multi Ecube lockers. No independent app publishes operator locker data for Japan, so the best tool is the operator's own, not a third-party download.

That answer surprises people who expected a startup. The most reliable locker-finding tool in Tokyo is Tokyo Metro's Locker Concierge service, which is linked from the header of Metro Commerce's own site and named in a Tokyo Metro news release. It is not a third party guessing at availability. It is the network's own feed of which doors are open.

The second tool is JR East's own reservation site, multiecube.com, run by JR East Smart Logistics for the Multi Ecube locker network. It shows live availability and, unlike anything Tokyo Metro offers, takes advance reservations. A third operator service exists on the Toei Subway: the reservation product branded スマホdeロッカー, which covers 7 stations and lets a traveller reserve from 2 hours ahead.

Searches for locker apps in Japan also surface names such as Coin Locker Navi. This guide sticks to the operator-run services, and the reason is simple: an app is only as good as the tariff behind it. The locker operators publish their prices, their internal box dimensions and their duration rules on their own pages, and only their own tools are wired to that data.

One disclosure before the detail. This page is part of Luggage Storage in Tokyo, an independent directory that operates no storage point of its own and runs no lockers and operates no storage point of any kind. The locker services described in the first half of this article are alternatives to that network, not products sold here, and they are described plainly because a reader in Tokyo deserves the honest comparison.

The rest of this article walks through what each service does, what reservations cost, what the size and price data behind the apps actually says, how long a found locker will hold a bag, and what to do on the morning every locker within reach is full.

Is Locker Concierge A Third-Party App?

No. Locker Concierge, at metro.akilocker.biz, is Tokyo Metro's own coin locker availability service, branded コインロッカー空き状況提供サービス and run by Metro Commerce. It is linked from Metro Commerce's own site header and named in a Tokyo Metro news release. It shows which Tokyo Metro locker doors are free; Tokyo Metro publishes no reservation option for its lockers.

The service covers a network of 4,830 locker doors across the Tokyo Metro system, which is the largest single locker estate in the city. What it does not do is take money. A traveller uses it to find a free door, walks to it, and pays at the locker itself. Metro Commerce's terms say to pay by whatever payment methods are displayed on the locker body, and the terms decline to enumerate them, so the machine in front of you is the authority.

One thing Locker Concierge quietly settles is a myth about Tokyo locker pricing. English-language travel writing often describes locker prices as varying station by station across the board. Tokyo Metro's position, published by Metro Commerce's own locker page across all 141 station rows, is different: the ladder is ¥300, ¥500, ¥600, ¥900 and ¥1,000, the same prices at every Metro station. What varies between stations is the mix of door sizes, not the price of a given tier.

That makes availability data more useful than price data for Metro. If the app shows a free door at your station, you already know what that door costs before you arrive. What you do not know is whether your bag fits, and that gap is covered further down this page.

For the mechanics of actually using a locker once you have found one, the companion piece a step-by-step coin locker walkthrough covers payment, IC cards and retrieval from first coin to opened door.

Can You Reserve A Coin Locker Before You Arrive?

On JR East, yes: multiecube.com takes advance reservations for Multi Ecube lockers at a surcharge of ¥500 per box. Toei's スマホdeロッカー service reserves lockers at 7 stations from 2 hours ahead for ¥100 to ¥300 extra by size. Tokyo Metro lockers have no published reservation option; Locker Concierge shows availability only.

The JR East reservation has a catch almost nobody mentions. The reservation-capable Multi Ecube units are 55 cm deep, while the walk-up boxes carrying the same tier names are 65 cm deep. Ten centimetres of depth is the difference between a wide checked suitcase lying flat and a door that will not close, so a traveller reserving online should check the tier's dimensions, not just its name, on the operator's own page before paying the ¥500.

Two more JR East rules shape how a reservation behaves. Opening the door ends the rental: retrieve the bag and you cannot put it back, and a multi-day reservation is forfeited with no refund. The only grace is a yellow reopen button giving 15 minutes. And JR East's own media property documents a peak-season surcharge of ¥100 to ¥200 on the medium and large tiers, so a price seen in a quiet month can be higher on the day you travel.

None of these services creates capacity. On peak days the big banks empty out early, and at Shinjuku the ordinary lockers run ¥100 dearer than the Multi Ecube boxes in the same station, so the app can show free doors that are simply the expensive ones. When every reachable locker is gone, the practical fallback is a staffed storage point that can be reserved in advance, and the Shinjuku and Shinagawa cases are followed in detail further down this page.

Shinagawa makes a good example of why the fallback matters. JR East's own media lists an attended baggage room inside the Central Gate there, and a small cluster of staffed Radical Storage points sits around the station, so a traveller whose locker plan fails has somewhere to send a bag before leaving the concourse. The full price arithmetic for those points, and their hours, comes later in this guide.

Do Locker Apps Tell You The Size And Price Before You Go?

Partly. JR East publishes every Multi Ecube tier and price, from SS at ¥300 to ¥400 up to LW at ¥800 to ¥1,000, so multiecube.com shows real numbers. Toei publishes internal dimensions but no walk-up yen price. Tokyo Metro publishes its five prices, ¥300 to ¥1,000, but never maps any price to a door size.

JR East is the transparent one. Its tiers, dimensions and price ranges are published on the operator's own pages, and the depth is the number to watch: every JR East locker tier is 34 cm deep, and a hard-shell suitcase around 30 cm deep with its wheels fits the depth while failing the height on the smaller tiers.

The LW tier is the one worth knowing about, and English-language coverage of Tokyo lockers rarely mentions it. At 56 cm deep it is the only common tier that swallows a wide checked suitcase lying flat. Proven station variance is real within JR East: Tokyo and Shinjuku list the M tier at ¥700 and L at ¥900, while Omiya and Hodogaya list M at ¥600 and L at ¥800, so the same tier name is not the same price on every JR East line.

Toei publishes its locker dimensions but no walk-up yen price anywhere reachable, which is a genuine gap: Toei's Asakusa locker page gives the internal measurements of each tier in millimetres, a large box at 856 x 342 x 663 mm, but no tariff. Tokyo Metro is the mirror image: five prices, published network-wide, and no centimetre figure for any of them. Which size each Metro price buys is simply not published, a gap no app can honestly fill.

For the full breakdown of what fits in which box, across every operator, the full locker size tier guide carries the complete dimensions table with the depth constraint explained.

How Many Lockers Are There At The Big Stations, Really?

Tokyo Metro alone operates 4,830 locker doors, including 146 at Shibuya, 127 at Ueno, 100 at Tokyo Station and 57 at Asakusa, all official operator counts of doors. The often-repeated figure that Ueno has 19 lockers counts locations, not doors: nineteen banks. No operator publishes a combined all-operator count for any station.

That locations-versus-doors confusion is the single most misreported locker fact in Tokyo. JR East's own figure of 19 at Ueno counts 箇所, meaning nineteen places where lockers stand. Tokyo Metro alone publishes 127 individual doors at the same station. English coverage repeatedly presents a count of locations or of units as a count of lockers, and a reader planning around the wrong number shows up expecting space that was never there.

The Multi Ecube row shows why the counting discipline matters twice over. JR East Smart Logistics counts 848 units across 267 stations, and a unit is a locker, but the station figure is not a locker figure at all. A traveller who reads "267" as lockers is off by nearly 600.

Availability apps inherit the same ambiguity. Locker Concierge and multiecube.com show doors, because their operators run doors. Aggregated lists and travel articles often count locations, and the two numbers describe stations of very different sizes. When a source says a station "has 50 lockers", the honest question to ask is fifty of what.

Shinjuku shows how the two worlds sit side by side. On the coin locker side, JR East's banks and the Multi Ecube boxes fill the station's corridors, and Sagawa runs an attended counter in the Shinjuku bus terminal from 06:30 to 21:00 at ¥800 to ¥1,500 per bag per day. On the staffed side, eight Radical Storage points sit near Shinjuku Station, six staffed and two automated lockers, rated 4.75 across 384 reviews, the deepest review pool of any area on this site's roster, with the nearest about 187 m from the station.

For a traveller using the apps, the practical reading is this: Shibuya and Ueno have the deepest Metro door pools, Tokyo Station's 100 Metro doors sit beside JR East's own banks, and Asakusa's Metro doors are supplemented by 72 Toei doors outside the gates. Where the numbers are thin, the staffed backup earns its place in the plan.

How Long Can A Locker Found With An App Hold Your Bag?

Tokyo Metro lockers run 4 days including the day you start; JR East Multi Ecube lockers run 3 days, and JR East Smart Logistics states plainly that paying more does not extend the period. The day rolls at 02:00, not midnight, and the first and last days each count as a full day however briefly you used them.

The two operators disagree on the maximum, and the difference is real: the same suitcase left in a Metro locker can outstay one left in a JR East box by a day. Metro Commerce's terms put it in one line, the rental period is 4 days including the start date. JR East Smart Logistics matches almost everything else but cuts it to 3 days, and its own text adds that on the fourth day the bag is pulled whether or not more money is paid.

What happens after expiry is worth knowing before it happens. The operator unlocks the locker, inspects the contents and moves them to a designated place. The contents are held for 30 days counted from the start of the original rental, and the same daily rate keeps running through that separate storage. Collecting requires the receipt, photo ID and the same IC card used to pay, and the separate storage fee is cash only. Your own travel costs to go and collect are yours. JR East disposes of food immediately, with no 30-day grace at all.

One small conflict inside JR East's own pages deserves a practical answer rather than a legal one. The Multi Ecube terms say the IC card you paid with is needed at retrieval; the Multi Ecube FAQ says the printed ticket unlocks the door by QR code or its six-digit number regardless of payment method. Both are current official pages. The safe habit is to keep the paper ticket, and if both ticket and card are lost, the operator's helpline at 0120-829-532, 08:00 to 21:00, will need the four-digit door number.

The station-specific version of this question, including what happens to a bag left too long at Tokyo Station specifically, is covered in locker duration limits at Tokyo Station, and the citywide rules across every operator are laid out in the duration guide on this site.

What If The App Shows No Free Lockers Anywhere?

When every locker the app shows is full, a staffed Radical Storage point is the main bookable backup: 850 yen per bag per day for a regular bag plus a 355 yen per-bag fee once at checkout, 850 plus 355 equals 1,205 yen for one bag for one day. Tokyo has 249 points holding 2,758 reviews between them.

Every storage point in that network is a real Radical Storage partner location, and this site neither owns nor operates any of them. Radical Storage's own map is a booking map for staffed points and automated lockers, not a coin locker finder, so it belongs at the end of the toolchain rather than the start: lockers first, at ¥300 to ¥1,100 depending on tier and operator, then staffed storage when the doors run out.

Two honesty notes belong beside that price. Radical Storage advertises "from 490 yen per day", but that is a small-bag rate found at 11 points only; the rate a traveller with a normal suitcase pays at 244 of the 249 Tokyo points is 850 yen. And the Radical Storage Guarantee is not insurance, their own terms say so, and payouts are capped at EUR 3,000 per claim. Hours vary point to point: 146 of the 249 Tokyo points are not open 24 hours, so a late drop-off needs a point whose posted hours actually cover it.

Shinagawa is the smallest station cluster on this site's roster and a useful illustration of checking before you commit. Three Radical Storage points sit around the station, one an automated locker and two staffed, rated 4.45 across 12 reviews, a small pool stated plainly rather than dressed up. The nearest is 1205 m from the station, far enough that a traveller with a heavy bag should confirm the location suits their route before reserving.

Ikebukuro is the opposite case and the stronger one for a locker-hunting traveller. Ten Radical Storage points sit near Ikebukuro Station, eight staffed and two automated lockers, rated 4.73 across 89 reviews, with the nearest about 227 m from the station. When JR East's banks around the station have emptied, a staffed point a couple of minutes away is the difference between parking the bag and carrying it through Sunshine City all afternoon.

The trade a traveller makes at a staffed point is simple. A coin locker is self-service, sealed behind a door you control, capped by contract at ¥30,000 of operator liability, and governed by a 3 or 4 day clock. A staffed point is a hand-over to a person at a counter or shop, bookable in advance, size-flexible in a way a 34 cm deep box never is, and priced per bag per day. Neither is the better choice in the abstract; the better choice depends on whether the bag fits, how long it stays, and whether a free door exists when you need one.

The apps, in the end, answer the last of those three questions better than anything else in Japan. Use Locker Concierge for Metro doors, multiecube.com for JR East boxes and reservations, and know where the nearest staffed point sits before the morning it becomes the only option left.

Common Questions About Finding Coin Lockers In Japan

What is the best app for finding coin lockers in Japan?

The best tools are the operators' own: Locker Concierge at metro.akilocker.biz for Tokyo Metro's 4,830 locker doors, and multiecube.com for JR East's Multi Ecube network, which also takes reservations. Toei's スマホdeロッカー service covers 7 stations. No independent app publishes operator locker data for Japan.

Can I reserve a coin locker in Tokyo before I arrive?

Yes, on two networks. JR East's multiecube.com takes advance reservations for Multi Ecube lockers at a surcharge of ¥500 per box, and Toei's スマホdeロッカー service reserves lockers at 7 stations from 2 hours ahead for ¥100 to ¥300 extra by size. Tokyo Metro lockers have no published reservation option.

Is Locker Concierge an official Tokyo Metro service?

Yes. Locker Concierge is Tokyo Metro's own coin locker availability service, run by Metro Commerce and linked from Metro Commerce's site header. It is not a third-party app. It shows free doors across the Metro network but takes no payment and no reservation.

Why do some websites say Ueno Station only has 19 lockers?

Because they are counting locations, not lockers. JR East's own figure of 19 counts nineteen banks of lockers, nineteen places where lockers stand. Tokyo Metro alone publishes 127 individual doors at Ueno. Any locker count should say what it counts before it is trusted.

Can I pay for a coin locker with Suica or PASMO?

Often, but it varies by bank of lockers. At Ueno, JR East's own guide lists most banks taking cash and transit IC cards, some banks taking transit IC only, and two banks also taking contactless services such as PayPay and Alipay. Metro Commerce's terms say to pay by whatever is displayed on the locker body itself.

What should I do if all the lockers at my station are full?

Check a staffed storage point before carrying the bag. Radical Storage points around the major stations cost 850 yen per bag per day for a regular bag plus a 355 yen per-bag fee once at checkout, 850 plus 355 equals 1,205 yen for one day. Alternatively, an attended station baggage room such as the JR East Logistics counters at Tokyo or Ueno holds bags at ¥500 to ¥2,000 per day by size, for up to 30 days.