Milliliters to Microliters (mL to µL)

1 milliliter equals 1,000 microliters exactly.

1 milliliter = 1,000 microliters

How to convert milliliters to microliters

To convert milliliters to microliters, multiply the number of milliliters by 1,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply microliters by 0.001.

microliters = milliliters × 1,000

Example: 10 milliliters = 10,000 microliters.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Milliliter (mL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a liter, or exactly 1 cubic centimeter. Used for medicine, cooking and small containers.

Milliliters inherit everything from the liter, since the prefix simply means one thousandth. Because the liter is a cubic decimeter, a milliliter works out to exactly one cubic centimeter, a coincidence the metric system built in on purpose so that volume, length and mass interlock. One milliliter of water has a mass of about one gram, so a dosing syringe, a kitchen scale and a measuring jug can all be checked against one another.

Today milliliters dominate wherever small amounts must be measured precisely: medicine, flavorings, perfume, shampoo and the fine print on drink labels. Spelling is a mild regional split, with uppercase mL preferred in the United States, Canada and Australia and lowercase ml common in the UK and Europe. For scale, a US teaspoon is just under 5 mL, a US tablespoon is about 14.8 mL, and the US nutrition-label cup is exactly 240 mL, so one such cup is 240 of these tiny units.

1 milliliter = 0.001 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

Microliter (µL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One millionth of a liter, equal to one cubic millimeter. Used for very small liquid volumes.

Older laboratory papers often call this volume a lambda, written with the Greek letter, and that name has been discouraged since 2014 in favor of the microliter. The prefix micro, meaning one millionth, entered the metric prefix list in 1873, when the symbol mu was eventually chosen because the capital M was already taken by mega. The unit therefore combines a nineteenth-century prefix with the liter.

One microliter is 10 to the minus 6 liter, which is the same volume as one cubic millimeter and one thousandth of a milliliter. Some medical test results print it as mcL instead of using the Greek letter. Small volumes like this matter wherever tiny samples are pipetted or reported, and the figure used here is exactly 0.000001 liter.

1 microliter = 0.000001 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix

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