12 Handy Mini Tools That Can Easily Fit Into Your Pocket Or Backpack

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Consider bonsai, cupcakes, and kittens; sometimes things are just better when they're small. There's just something about small things that seemingly lights up our hearts. From action figures and dollhouses to Shrinky Dinks and tiny painted barbarians used for tabletop roleplaying games, people seem to love miniature things, and there's no shortage of interesting miniature items you can buy online. As it turns out, our love of miniature stuff extends beyond toys to tools, gadgets, and more.

Sometimes you need a big, beefy tool to do a heavy-duty job, but most of the time you can get away with something a little subtler. Often, a smaller version of your favorite tools and gadgets can provide enough utility without taking up too much space. It's all about using the right tool for the job, and sometimes the right tool is just a little bit smaller.

Smaller tools mean you have more space for a greater variety without overloading yourself, especially if you're packing things around on the move and you have limited space. If you or the tool lover in your life want a cool little gadget or a useful tool that's small enough to slide into cramped work areas, slip into a pocket, or carry around in a bag, look no further. These 12 tools are all available from popular online and/or brick-and-mortar stores, and all of them are miniature.

A screwdriver is one of the world's most basic tools, but that doesn't mean your screwdriver has to be basic. The DeWalt DWHT66719 cordless powered screwdriver has an electric motor capable of 44 inch-pounds of torque. If you need more than that, it can handle up to 124 inch-pounds of manual (muscle-powered) torque. It comes with a variety of heads so you can tackle most of the common bits of hardware you're likely to encounter, and it's small enough to slip into a reasonably sized pocket.

The DWHT66719 is a celebrated screwdriver, making several notable best-of lists, including our own list of the best electric screwdrivers on the market. The screwdriver is capable of driving up to 680 screws with a full charge of the built-in 2Ah battery. And those fasteners turn fast, moving as quickly as 360 RPM. If 680 fasteners aren't enough for your purposes, you can recharge the battery in about an hour.

Other features include an LED work light, a soft-start function to help prevent damage, and a torque control dial on the handle that allows the user to choose from six levels of torque. The driver comes in a kit along with a USB-C charging cable and 12 two-inch bits.

While "grease" is used colloquially to refer to cooking oil and melted fats, it also refers to mechanical lubricants. Grease is useful for machines that can't or aren't lubricated frequently or when a thinner lubricating oil won't stay in place. Grease can act as a protective coating for moving parts, prevent metal-on-metal contact, and help machines operate more smoothly with less noise. It can also act as a seal to keep water and other materials out of internal mechanisms.

It's not the most elegant of DIY or maintenance tasks, but sometimes machines need greasing. You can squeeze grease out of a tube by hand, but if you need to pump a bunch of grease onto a surface or into an object's interior, or if you need to apply a specific amount in a specific location, a grease gun can do the trick. And if you need something small enough to get into cramped spaces, this 3-ounce grease gun from Harbor Freight (yes, Harbor Freight has grease guns) might be just what you're looking for.

It features a pistol-grip handle that allows the user to operate it with one hand, and a grease pipe that can attach at 0 or 90 degrees. It can hold up to 3 ounces of grease at a time or accept grease cartridges. In fact, it comes with a single 3-ounce cartridge so you can start greasing as soon as you get home.

Ratcheting socket wrenches have a slate of helpful features. The levering action increases your leverage and the ratchet mechanism lets you turn fasteners one way or another without disengaging. It can also be a more stable tool, when compared to a screwdriver, by impacting the fastener at multiple surface points.

The Sunex 44-piece socket and bit set features a quarter-inch drive socket and a flex-head design that allows you to more easily maneuver around obstacles. The set comes with a few dozen sockets and bits for fastening and unfastening various types of hardware. You'll also get a quick-release extension bar, Phillips head bits, slotted bits, star bits, hex bits in both SAE (also known as Imperial) and metric, and more. It's one of our favorite miniature sets, which is why it made our list of 10 high-quality mini socket sets.

The so-called flex head pivots so the user can customize the angle of attack, helping to turn fasteners in cramped quarters. And the whole thing comes in a carrying and storage case just 6.5 inches long, compact enough to tuck easily into a work bag or backpack.

If you've ever wanted to feel like a surgeon (without the years of training or the life-and-death stakes), this could be your opportunity. This kit contains three tools that work together to inspect and retrieve objects from tight or out-of-the-way spaces, like an oversized game of "Operation" that takes place in the real world.

The kit contains a claw retrieval tool with a flexible handle, a magnetic retrieval tool with a telescoping handle and a two-pound carrying capacity, and a two-inch inspection mirror. Using the trio of tools in this retrieval tool kit from Craftsman, you can poke around, peek into previously inaccessible nooks and crannies, and retrieve various small objects.

These tools let you change your perspective, see around corners, and get into places where your fleshy fingers could never fit. Whether you've dropped your keys down a sewer grate or you need to grab something out of an engine bay, these tiny tools could come in handy.

Drills are among the most common tools in the average tool kit. These days, people often opt for a power drill, but this tiny hand drill from The Army Painter trades electrical power for manual power and shrinks things down for fine, intentional drilling. It's good for situations when you want to take things a little more carefully, like when drilling through fragile materials or near sensitive objects.

It drills through materials like metal, resin, or plastics. It's good for crafting and other small projects. Once upon a time, people even used drills like these to pierce their fingernails and attach small rings. It's the size and general shape of a pen, with a rotating base you can rest in the palm of your hand as you turn the drill bit slowly through your chosen materials. Just keep the soft bits of your other hand out of the way.

It comes with a set of three drill bits in 1-millimeter, 1.4-millimeter, and 1.8-millimeter diameters. You can buy additional drill bits to meet your tiny handheld drilling needs, and the whole thing is slender and just 5 inches long.

Utility knives have been around for a long time and are useful for a wide range of tasks, depending on their design. Today, they are common across a wide range of situations and industries. Depending on their size, shape, and features, they can be used everywhere from the wilderness to the kitchen. In the woods, they can be used to prepare kindling and cut rope. In the kitchen, they can be used to prepare vegetables, scale fish, and more. In the workshop, a utility knife often refers to a retractable or folding razor blade used to cut wires, tubing, and pipe, trim panels, cut open packages, break down boxes, and more.

The Pittsburgh mini folding lock-back utility knife from Harbor Freight is marketed as "lightweight and portable enough to fit in your pocket." It extends to roughly four inches long when open, and it folds in half to become more compact and to tuck the sharp parts of the blade safely inside. It comes with a handful of replacement blades and a chain to attach to your keys, belt loop, or backpack.

As the name suggests, a multitool is designed to have the utility of several tools all in one compact package. A small knife takes center stage, which is why multitools are sometimes called pocket knives, but a multitool's other functions make it useful in a wide range of situations.

This multitool from Amazon Basics is made of stainless steel and it packs more than a dozen commonly used tools into a pocket-sized package so that you can handle whatever your day throws at you. It also comes with a nylon carrying pouch and belt attachment so you can keep your pockets empty and your hands free while still keeping your multitool nearby.

Its attachments include a slot screwdriver and Phillips head screwdriver, bottle opener, knife, saw, hook remover, fish scaler, scissors, ice breaker, nail cleaner, file, needle, corkscrew, carabiner, and keyring. There are 15 tools in total and they're all tucked into a package just 3.7 inches long when folded up and about 6 inches long when extended, depending on the tool you're using.

It's unlikely that anyone is going to write home about a razor blade scraper; it's an inelegant tool for inelegant jobs, but it works. This miniature razor blade scraper from Harbor Freight is designed to help you scrape away paint, caulk, and other surface materials.

It measures about 2.3 inches long, 1.25 inches wide, and only 5/32 inch tall, when laid down. The main material is steel but there's also a rubber-coated handle and a scraping head offset by 25 degrees.

The scraper is small enough to slip into a pocket and you can even swap the orientation of the blade so you can transport and store the scraper in a pocket or anywhere else without risk of injury. You can use a razor blade scraper to get rid of old stickers and adhesives, scrape hardened food gunk from ovens and grill racks, scrape away excess finishing materials, and more. And when the scraping head gets dull, it's easy to replace with just a single mounting screw.

Electrical testers come in a variety of forms, with a wide range of functions. At the higher end of the spectrum, there are tools like multimeters. They are larger and more expensive but provide a variety of readings like resistance, voltage, capacitance, and more. On the other end of the spectrum are simpler tools like the portable 1AC II non-contact voltage tester from Fluke.

This pocket-sized voltage tester works by sensing the electrostatic field created by AC voltage. It can detect voltage even through insulated wires, so the tool doesn't need direct contact with conducting materials. When it detects voltage it lets you know by lighting up and beeping, though you can choose to turn off the audible alerts if you want to.

It's a simple voltage tester you can stick into an outlet or touch to the surface of a terminal strip or electrical cord. It can help you identify problems in your electrical system by finding out where voltage is present and where it isn't. It can also tell you in a moment if power is cut and it's safe to do electrical work. It's good for simple jobs and a good starting point for more complicated electrical work.

We think of metals as solid and practically impenetrable. We use metals to build spaceships, submarines, and armor, the sorts of things you want to stand up against anything you throw at them. Then again, the existence of aluminum foil proves that some metals are harder than others.

There are different types of strength, but hardness is what determines how much a metal can stand up to scratching, cutting, and other kinds of deformation. The Mohs Hardness Scale is what rates the hardness of metals and other minerals on a scale of 1 (talc) to 10 (diamond). This pocket-sized pipe cutter from Pittsburgh is made of alloy steel, which has a hardness score of about 6.5, and that's why it can be used to cut through tubes and pipes made of softer metals like copper, brass, and aluminum, which have a Mohs score of about 3.

To use the tool, you just slide it around any copper, brass, or aluminum tube between 1/8 inch and 1-1/8 inches in diameter, fasten the tightening screw, then rotate the cutter around until it slices clean through.

Knowing the precise angle of objects and materials is important when you're trying to build something with clean lines. Instead of using a protractor, this electronic angle measurer from Klein calculates the angle of any surface with an accuracy of a tenth of a degree.

It has a magnetic bottom so it can attach to metal objects and the screen rotates automatically so you can read measurements no matter how the tool is oriented. There's also a button that zeroes out the angle, so you can make one measurement, then make another, and read the relative angle between them.

Its edges are flat, but it also has v-grooves on all four sides so it will sit neatly on flat surfaces or on curved surfaces like pipes. It comes with everything you need to get started, including a pair of AAA batteries and a soft carrying case. Whether you're leveling a picture or building a treehouse, this pocket-sized digital angle measurer could come in handy.

When it comes time to choose an emergency flashlight, there are a lot of things to consider: how bright the light is, how much range it has, whether it can recharge or needs disposable batteries, size, weight, shape, and additional functions.

If you have the space and the need, you could opt for an emergency light with bells and whistles like hand-crank power and an AM/FM radio, but if you want something that's as compact and portable as possible, Harbor Freight's 80-lumen LED flashlight is worth a look.

It's pocket-sized and conveniently rechargeable. Despite its small size, it also has decent range, illuminating an area up to 30 feet away. It's a simple machine with a single button to turn the light on and off. It runs for about 3 hours in high mode with a fully charged battery, and you can recharge it by plugging the flashlight directly into your car's 12V power outlet. Keep it in your car's glovebox or toss it into a pocket or bag and you'll always have a light when and if you need it.

To make this list, each of these tools had to meet a few criteria. First and foremost, they had to be small. At the largest extreme, a tool had to be able to fit inside a typical backpack. If it can't fit inside a teenager's JanSport, you won't find it here. In most cases, the tools on this list are even smaller, compact enough to slip into an average pants pocket.

In addition to being small, they also had to be functional. On this list you'll find tools designed for fastening, lubricating, retrieving, cutting, scraping, measuring, and more. Finally, their value is supported by at least one of the following: the personal experience of one or more SlashGear authors, published reviews from other trusted publications, or the aggregate experience of consumers. In fact, in every case these products have at least 100 consumer ratings (in most cases hundreds or thousands of ratings) and an aggregate score of at least 4 stars.