Volume Converter
Convert liters, gallons, cups, milliliters, and more.
Conversion sheet
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Volume conversions show up constantly in cooking, fuel, and home projects — a recipe in milliliters, a gas tank in gallons, a paint can in quarts. This tool routes every measure through liters so the cup-to-milliliter and gallon-to-liter answers are all consistent.
How it works
Values convert through liters as the base unit.
These are US customary volumes. A US gallon is 3.785411 liters and contains 4 quarts, 8 pints, or 16 cups. If you're working from a UK (imperial) recipe, the gallon and pint are larger, so the numbers won't match.
Because everything pivots through liters, you can chain otherwise awkward conversions — cups to fluid ounces, or quarts to milliliters — without doing the intermediate arithmetic yourself.
Result = (value × liters-per-source-unit) ÷ liters-per-target-unit.
Worked examples
Convert 5 US gallons to liters. → 18.93 liters
5 × 3.785411 L per gallon = 18.927 L.
Convert 2 US cups to milliliters. → 473.18 milliliters
2 × 0.236588 L = 0.473176 L, which is 473.18 mL.
Tips & gotchas
- A US cup is about 237 mL, while a 'metric cup' in many recipes is 250 mL. For baking accuracy, weigh dry ingredients instead of relying on cup volume.
- US and UK gallons differ by roughly 20% — a UK gallon is about 4.55 L. Confirm which system a recipe or fuel figure uses before converting.
- For liquids, a fluid ounce of water weighs about an ounce, but that breaks down for oils and syrups. Use the Weight Converter when a recipe specifies grams.
- Cubic meters (1000 liters) are handy for large volumes like aquariums or rainwater tanks — 1 cubic meter is a cube one meter on each side.
FAQ
Are these US or imperial gallons?
US. A US gallon is 3.785 liters; a UK imperial gallon is 4.546 liters, about 20% larger. Don't mix the two when comparing fuel economy or recipes.
How many milliliters are in a US cup?
About 236.6 mL. Many recipes round this to 240 or use a 250 mL metric cup, so check the source if precision matters.
Can I convert a tank measured in cubic feet here?
Not directly — cubic feet isn't in this unit set. Convert cubic feet to liters separately (1 cubic foot is about 28.3 L) and enter that.
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