Have you ever found a random pill in your purse, on the floor, or elsewhere and forgotten where it came from and what it is? Luckily, there is a free resource from the National Library of Medicine that can help you identify those mystery pills!

Pillbox is a website that can be searched by various characteristics of the pill you want to identify, including imprint (letters/numbers imprinted on one or both sides of the pill), color, and shape. Alternatively, you can search by name if you know the name of a drug and want to see what it looks like. You can also search by active or inactive ingredient to see what pills contain certain ingredients, which may be useful in case of allergies.

Search results appear in the form of photographs with the drug name underneath, and clicking on a photo reveals additional information about the pill such as strength and ingredients. Each record links out to drug label information in DailyMed and further drug information in the Drug Information Portal. The website is very easy to use and is a great free alternative to subscription drug information databases or apps.

Emily Gorman, School of Pharmacy Librarian, University of Maryland Baltimore

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