Volume Converter
Convert litres, millilitres, gallons, cups and more.
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The Volume Converter switches a capacity between litre, millilitre, cubic metre, US gallon, US quart, US cup and US fluid ounce. It is handy for recipes from American websites, water tank sizes, bottle and container labels, and any figure quoted in gallons.
How to convert
Fill in Value, choose the unit you have under From and the unit you want under To, then press Convert. The tool expresses the value in litres and divides by the target unit's size. Besides the headline answer you get the volume in each of the other six units, rounded to six decimals.
Unit sizes in litres
| Unit | Litres |
|---|---|
| 1 millilitre | 0.001 |
| 1 cubic metre | 1,000 |
| 1 US gallon | 3.785411784 |
| 1 US quart | 0.946352946 |
| 1 US cup | 0.2365882365 |
| 1 US fluid ounce | 0.0295735295625 |
The US units nest neatly: one gallon is 4 quarts, 16 cups or 128 fluid ounces. Entering 2 US cups confirms this, giving 0.5 quart, 16 fluid ounces and 473.176473 ml.
Worked examples
A 5-gallon water jar
Enter 5, From US gallon, To litre: 5 × 3.785411784 = 18.927059 litres. So a jar sold as "5 gallons" holds only slightly less than the familiar 20-litre drinking water can.
A 1,000-litre overhead tank
One cubic metre is exactly 1,000 litres, so a 1,000 L tank holds 1 m³, which the converter also shows as 264.172052 US gallons. Municipal water in many Indian cities is billed per kilolitre, and a kilolitre is the same thing as a cubic metre, so the number on the bill converts to tank-fulls directly.
Imported bottle labels
American drinks often print sizes in fluid ounces. A 16.9 fl oz bottle converts to 499.79 ml, which is simply a 500 ml bottle labelled for the US market.
US, imperial and metric measures
Every non-metric unit here is US customary. The British imperial gallon is larger at 4.54609 litres, about 20% more than the US gallon, and the imperial fluid ounce is about 28.41 ml rather than 29.57 ml. Using this tool on an old British recipe or fuel figure that means imperial gallons will therefore understate the volume. Cups vary as well: Australian and New Zealand recipes use a 250 ml metric cup, about 6% more than the US cup's 236.59 ml, which matters more in baking than in a dal.
Volume is not weight
A cup of flour and a cup of water fill the same space but weigh very different amounts, so this converter cannot turn cups into grams for dry ingredients. Water is the handy exception: one litre of water weighs almost exactly one kilogram, so you can move between them and use the weight converter from there.