A door that won't latch is a geometry problem: the latch bolt and the strike plate hole have drifted out of alignment — usually by a couple of millimeters, usually because of loose hinge screws or seasonal humidity. The lipstick trick shows you exactly where it's hitting, and the fixes go from 30 seconds to 20 minutes.
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Scan It FreeSagging starts here 80% of the time. If screws spin without biting, replace the top hinge's inner screws with 3-inch wood screws — they reach past the stripped jamb into the wall stud and pull the whole door back up and square. This one move fixes most latch misses AND most top-corner scraping.
Color the latch bolt tip, close the door gently, open. The mark on the strike plate shows the miss: too high, too low, or not reaching. Now you're adjusting with data.
File the strike opening in the miss direction. Faster than moving the plate, invisible when done.
Unscrew it, chisel the recess slightly in the needed direction, fill the old screw holes with toothpick + glue, re-drill, remount. Sounds fussy; takes ten minutes.
Cardboard shim behind the hinge leaf (in the mortise, screw through it) pushes the door toward the latch side. Shim the top or bottom hinge to steer the latch up or down diagonally.
Run a dollar bill around the closed door — where it snags is the rub. Try the 3-inch screw trick (step 1) first; it re-hangs the door without surgery. Humidity swelling that persists: plane or sand the rubbing edge (door closed marks it via the lipstick trick on the frame), then SEAL the raw edge with paint/poly — unsealed edges re-swell every summer, which is why it 'always comes back.'
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