ChadScanner

ChadScanner guide

ChadScanner is a free Windows app for Escape from Tarkov. Shift + click an item in your stash and a card next to the cursor shows how many you still need for quests and hideout upgrades and what the item sells for. It reads the screen with screenshots and OCR only. This guide covers install, the card, hotkeys, progress sync and fixes.

Last updated · ChadScanner v0.1.1

How to install ChadScanner

  1. Download chadscanner-win-x64.zip. On the Releases page it is the file labelled chadscanner-win-x64.zip; ignore the other files.
  2. Right-click the zip → Extract All… and choose a place you own, e.g. C:\; this creates C:\ChadScanner. Not Program Files (updates rewrite this folder), and don't run it from inside the zip.
  3. Open the ChadScanner folder and double-click chadscanner.exe. SmartScreen warns about an unsigned app: More info → Run anyway. The first start downloads the item data (about 180 MB); a toast says when it is done.
  4. In EFT set Borderless (Settings → Graphics → Screen mode). Exclusive fullscreen is not supported: the card is a normal topmost window and cannot be drawn over an exclusive-fullscreen game.
  5. Shift + Left-click an item in your stash. ChadScanner sits in the tray; right-click it for Settings, Pause scanning, Check for updates and Quit.

How to read the item card

Example card for the item NaCl:

NaCl 27× needed
    QUESTS
    4× Pets Won't Need It FIR · now
    3× First in Line FIR · trader dialogue
    3× Thirsty - Secrets FIR · 4 quests
    HIDEOUT
    6× Medstation 2 now
    10× Medstation 3 3 upgrades
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
    Flea 94 666 ₽ Therapist 4 339 ₽
    Barters 3 · Crafts 5

The border colour tells you what to do with the item:

Border Meaning What to do
Amber Needed now by a quest or hideout upgrade you can do now Keep it
Purple Kappa quest Keep it
Brown Needed later Keep it
Grey Not needed, or low value Sell it
Green Not needed, worth at least 30 000 ₽ per slot Flea it

Scan buttons

The default scan button is Shift + Left click. Other options: Alt + Left, Middle, Mouse 4 and Mouse 5. Change it under Settings → Scanning.

Hand in quest items with Arrow Up

With EFT focused, Arrow Up adds one to the first need on the last scanned item's card that still has room (quests, then hideout; each nearest first) and redraws the card. Arrow Down undoes the last one. With Scanning → Arrow Up also fills non-FIR needs off, an item with any FIR need only fills its FIR ones. The keys still reach the game. Switch them off under Scanning.

With TarkovTracker as the source a change shows on the card at once and is confirmed with a read 30 seconds after the last write. If the server does not report what was written, the server's value wins and the disagreement is logged and shown as a toast.

Progress: on this PC or TarkovTracker

The game mode switches between PvP and PvE by itself when EFT starts a session.

Built-in TarkovTracker window

A second window, ChadScanner · TarkovTracker, embeds tarkovtracker.org (WebView2) so no separate browser is needed. It opens at start; closing it hides it, and the tray item TarkovTracker brings it back. Log in once (Discord, GitHub, Twitch or email; Google may be refused inside WebView2); the login is kept. The site must be set to English.

Trader and hideout levels from EFT's menus

Outside a raid, with EFT focused, ChadScanner reads EFT's own menus after every left click and writes the result into the TarkovTracker window:

Raid map

EFT's logs tell ChadScanner when a raid starts and ends. At spawn the ChadScanner window opens tarkovtracker.org's own map of the location (the same one that shows your quest objectives); it is shown without taking focus from EFT, even if you had closed it. ChadScanner reads the extraction list EFT shows at spawn (EXIT01 …, EFT focused, Borderless) once per raid, and again whenever you press EFT's show-exits key (read from EFT's Control.ini), and hides every extract that is not on your list. TarkovTracker's own PMC / Scav / spawn toggles still apply.

Settings

Right-click the tray icon → Settings. Changes are saved and applied immediately.

Page What it sets
Card Sections (quests, hideout, barters, crafts), non-FIR needs, rows, Smart / Simple order, Goal, size, close when the mouse leaves, timeout
Progress Where progress is kept: On this PC (local file) or TarkovTracker.org (API tokens per game mode, with Test); player level and faction; import a TarkovTracker backup
Hideout Built station levels (local progress only)
Scanning Scan button: Shift + Left, Alt + Left, Middle, Mouse 4, Mouse 5; quest progress keys and non-FIR fill
EFT logs Quest tracking on/off, logs folder
About Log file, settings folder, debug reports

Updates

The app checks GitHub 30 seconds after start and every 6 hours. A newer release shows a toast and the tray item becomes Update to vX.Y.Z; clicking it downloads, swaps the files and restarts. Item data is downloaded again only when it changed. Check for updates in the tray menu checks on demand.

Troubleshooting

Where ChadScanner keeps its files

Where What
C:\ChadScanner\ chadscanner.exe, onnxruntime.dll, data\ (models, index, item images)
%APPDATA%\ChadScanner\ config.json, progress.json, pending.json (TarkovTracker writes waiting for retry), logstate.json (EFT log read position), tracker-window.json (TarkovTracker window position), webview\ (its browser profile: keeps the login), cache\ (tarkov.dev data), reports\, log.txt

Where the data comes from

Download ChadScanner

Windows 10/11 · x64 · free · Only official download: GitHub Releases.