Also, I have 4 boxes full of scrap board to '"process", and it's pointless salvaging components from them all, unless I have an inventory system to process and store them.
My preference is to not "process" any board, but rather to keep them intact until you actually want a component off it. There are a few reasons...
1. Not spending time removing components only to never use them
2. Avoids the risk of losing/misplacing a component. A board is harder to lose.
3. Components on a board are generally better protected - both electrically and physically (after all, they survived how long?)
4. You have an example of an actual circuit (which may be helpful)
5. If a real-world use of a component needs other components to support its function, then you will likely have them ... right next to it!
6. If you have a need for a circuit, you may be able to tap into one already built!
Of course, there are times when the particular population of a board doesn't contain much of interest, so removing what is and discarding the rest would be sensible. I have done that. The same can be said for removing bulky appendages that would make for inefficient use of storage - heatsinks being a classic example. (I have to admit to being a bit of a heatsink tragic here. In my younger days, heatsinks were not particularly plentiful and chassis panels often performed that role - which aren't particularly easy to recycle. As such, if I see one that looks half decent, I have to "save" it )
Of course, you can still catalogue the components of interest - but this is an exercise I have never been enticed into and at this stage in life, I cannot see me starting.
Oh well, in my case keeping the boards is much more trouble than it's worth.
No risk of damaging or losing components or anything... I only salvage general purpose stuff that can always be reused in other contexts. basically I salvage power resistors, power transistors and diodes and other beefy semiconductors. Relays, big high voltage film caps, IEC sockets, small H/W, heat sinks that don't have too "custom"/hard to reuse shape, opto-couplers in SMPS, coils, fuses and fuse holders, connectors, powers switches, micro switches, trimmers, pots, encoders, infra red barrier sensors, audio amplifiers, motor drivers, things like that. Then I scrap the board. I am not keeping it for exotic and specific chips I will never reuse, or all the small size jelly bean discrete components that cost only cents a dozen brand new, not worth the time and electricity for the soldering iron !
That's mostly true for all the large single sided board like TV or monitor main boards, typically, or amplifiers or old consumler stuff like CD players or VCR or amps.
For more modern stuff, like a digital board, usually they are very small and very "low profile", They don't take that much space, and it 's all surface mount stuff which is a pain to store/organize.
So for that kind of board I think I might prefer, might find it more practical, to keep them in stock, and salvage only parts from them as I need to. Like surface mount MOSFET things like that. Even the boards that appear to be useless because they contain bugger all, or just chips I could never reuse... I still think I will keep them around (again because take very little space), as scrap boards so I can practice de/soldering of modern chips with zero consequences.
So that's roughly how I intend to go about all those boards :
Old bulky through hole analog boards : salvage general purpose components then scrap the board to make space.
The modern SMD boards, that are small and low profile, I might keep most of them and sort them into 3 broad categories, for easier/faster access :
1) SMPS / power supply stuff.
2) Digital boards with discrete components that might come handy to fix other stuff.
3) Boards with not much interesting on them, that I can use as guinea pigs to safely practice de/soldering.