Topo Designs Accessory Bags Review

The Topo Designs Accessory Bags are perfect for keeping all your dongles, flash drives, tech accessories and miscellaneous items organized while traveling. These bags feel durable and the three sizes Topo offers—micro, small and medium—are ideal for a range of small gear. We love how easily you can throw these things into your pack or into one another.

So let’s get into it!

Material & Aesthetic

There’s not much to say as far as aesthetic goes for these bags. They look like, well, accessory bags. There are no excessive doo-dads, straps, or anything like that. It’s just a super simple pouch, which if you know us, is exactly what we like to see.

As of this review, they are available in eight colorways, including such fun combinations as Red/Navy and Forest/ Kelly (i.e. green and green) in typical Topo style.

And like most of Topo’s products, these accessory bags are made of some durable stuff, including tough 1000D CORDURA® nylon (a few colors are available with 1000D CORDURA ripstop nylon) on the back exterior, a coated pack cloth front and a 400D nylon pack cloth on the interior. We like the pack cloth front because it’s easy to clean and 1000D fabric is super strong and durable, which we also love.

The Accessory Bags come in three sizes. For some reason, Topo named them micro, small, and medium instead of small, medium and large, but whatever works. The micro holds your smaller items, like retractable ethernet cables, flash drives, and cash, while the small fits battery banks, travel adapters, and computer mouses (mice?). The medium has enough space for small notebooks, computer chargers, and e-readers.

The bags also fit nicely inside one another—like Russian Nesting Dolls—if you want to organize even further.

The zippers are YKK—so they’ll last (in theory)—and the zipper pulls are a thick paracord so they probably won’t be going anywhere either. Honestly, we think the pulls are almost too bulky for the size of the pouches, but that’s preferable to dinky zipper pulls that will break after a few uses. So we won’t complain too much.

External Components

Initially, we thought we wouldn’t like the position of the zippers—which are located about a quarter of the way off the top of the bag, instead of the top itself—but our initial assessment changed as we used it. The zipper location actually makes it easier to access the inside and all the goodies you have stored there. Plus, we think it looks nice.

The small and medium bags also have nylon pull tabs to hold while you zip, making it super easy to rip them open and closed. Compounded by those thick paracord zipper pulls and it’s, dare we say, fun to get in and out of these bags.

There are paracord loops on all three of the bags as well, so you can easily attach it to a bag or, if you’ve got dad style, your belt.

Internal components

When you open one of these pouches up you will be greeted with absolutely nothing. Seriously, we cannot overemphasize the complete lack of organization in these pouches…and we love it that way. Because of that, you can use them for nearly anything, from snacks to a tech pouch.

The inside of the Accessory Bags do tout a brightly colored nylon interior. This is a great feature as the color makes it easier to spot your gear. Black against lime green is easy to see; black against black, not so much.

Other than that, there’s not much going on internally. We like that—as these bags are so small it makes sense to keep them simple—but if you’re serious about organization you may miss some additional interior pockets or features.

Durability & Usage

As we mentioned earlier, the accessory bags are made of some nice materials that should last a little while. We’ve been using these bags for two weeks and have no major issues to report yet.

That being said, we do have a minor issue to report. The stitching on the logo tag on the front of the pack frayed on our larger bag. This is a common occurrence for Topo—we saw it when we reviewed their 40L Travel Bag and even with one of their hats—and while it’s not a big deal, we will continue to point it out every single time.