LaundryMax reads the care label, so you don't have to

Photograph the care label sewn into any garment and LaundryMax reads the symbols and the printed instructions, explains them in plain words — wash temperature, cycle, bleach, drying, ironing, dry cleaning — and sorts the garment into the right load alongside everything else in your closet.

It's free to use: 30 label scans in your first month and 5 a month after that, supported by ads. LaundryMax Premium raises that to 100 scans a day, with no ads, for $2.99 a month.

How it works

• Scan. Take a photo of the care label — or several, when the instructions wrap around the seam. LaundryMax reads the standard care symbols and any written instructions next to them.
• Understand. Every instruction is shown as its symbol with a plain-language explanation: what a tub marked 40 with one bar means, why the crossed-out triangle matters, when "dry clean only" is a rule and when it's a disclaimer.
• Sort. Save the garment to your closet with its color, and LaundryMax groups your laundry into loads that can safely go in together — whites, darks and colors, split again by cycle and temperature — with the machine settings each load needs.

What you get

• A closet that remembers every garment's care instructions and colors, with favorites, synced between the Android app and the web.
• Loads sorted by color and wash cycle, and the settings for each — temperature, cycle and spin — ready to dial into the machine.
• A complete laundry care symbol guide and a growing set of laundry guides: sorting, wash temperatures, cycles, color bleeding, how often to wash, dry-clean-only labels.
• The same account on your phone and in the browser. The Android app is on Google Play in closed testing; the web version is right here.

Accuracy, honestly

LaundryMax uses AI to read labels, and AI makes mistakes — a faded print or an unusual layout can be misread. Every reading shows you the symbols it found so you can check them against the label, and you can correct any reading. When the label and the app disagree, trust the label.

Learn the symbols yourself

Care symbols follow one international standard, and there are only five shapes to learn — a tub, a triangle, a square, an iron and a circle — each modified by dots, bars and crosses. The symbol guide explains every one of them, and the guides cover the questions that come up in front of the machine.