What is Volume Conversion?
Volume units split into the metric family (milliliters, liters, cubic meters) and the US customary family (teaspoons, tablespoons, fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, gallons). The collision happens daily in the kitchen: an American recipe says “1 cup of milk” and the rest of the world owns measuring jugs marked in milliliters. This converter is built with that cooking use case front and center.
What Does This Tool Do?
Enter an amount, pick the source and target units, and get the converted value instantly — plus a table of the same amount in all ten supported units, which doubles as an on-screen kitchen chart. Factors follow the exact US definitions (1 US gallon = 3.785411784 L exactly).
How to Use This Tool
- Type the amount.
- Choose the from and to units — remembered for your next visit.
- Read the result and the all-units table; copy with one click.
- Use ⇄ to reverse the conversion.
Kitchen Conversion Chart (US measures)
| Measure | Equals | In milliliters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon (tsp) | ⅓ tbsp | 4.93 mL (~5 mL) |
| 1 tablespoon (tbsp) | 3 tsp | 14.79 mL (~15 mL) |
| 1 fluid ounce | 2 tbsp | 29.57 mL (~30 mL) |
| 1 cup | 16 tbsp / 8 fl oz | 236.6 mL (~240 mL) |
| 1 pint | 2 cups | 473.2 mL |
| 1 quart | 2 pints / 4 cups | 946.4 mL (~0.95 L) |
| 1 gallon | 4 quarts / 16 cups | 3,785 mL (3.79 L) |
The parenthetical values are the rounded figures most recipe sites use — close enough for cooking, and easier to measure.
Practical Kitchen Equivalences
- 1 cup of flour ≈ 120–125 g, but 1 cup of sugar ≈ 200 g — cups measure volume, so the weight depends on the ingredient’s density. For baking precision, weight beats volume; for soups and sauces, volume is fine.
- Butter: 1 US stick = 8 tbsp = ½ cup ≈ 113 g.
- “A splash / a glug”: ~1–2 tbsp — some units resist standardization.
- Coffee: a standard drip “cup” line is 150 mL, not the 237 mL culinary cup — one reason a “12-cup” coffee maker holds only 1.8 L.
Watch Out: US vs UK vs Metric Cups
The US cup (236.6 mL, used here) is not the only cup. Australia and New Zealand use a metric cup of exactly 250 mL; old UK recipes may use the imperial cup (284 mL) — and the imperial pint (568 mL) is famously bigger than the US pint (473 mL), as anyone comparing pub pours discovers. When a recipe’s origin is unclear, the difference (up to 20%) can matter in baking. This tool uses US customary definitions, which cover the vast majority of online recipes.
Popular Conversions
For the kitchen classic, see the dedicated cups to ml page with fraction tables and cup-standard differences.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my data private?
Yes — all conversion happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to any server.
How many milliliters in a cup, exactly?
A US customary cup is exactly 236.5882365 mL. Recipe sites round it to 240 mL, and nutrition labels legally use exactly 240 mL. For cooking, any of these is fine; this tool gives you the exact figure and you can round freely.
Are dry and liquid measuring cups different?
They hold the same volume — the difference is ergonomics. Liquid cups have a spout and headroom to avoid spills; dry cups are meant to be filled to the brim and leveled. Using the right style improves accuracy, not the unit itself.
How do I convert cups of an ingredient to grams?
Volume→weight depends on density: 1 cup of water is 237 g, of flour ~120 g, of honey ~340 g. Convert the volume here, then use an ingredient density table (or a kitchen scale, which is more accurate for baking anyway).
Is a US fluid ounce the same as a UK fluid ounce?
Almost but not quite: US = 29.57 mL, imperial = 28.41 mL (~4% smaller). This tool uses the US definition, which is what American recipes and nutrition labels mean.