Storage

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Types of containers the game knows are chests, coffers, boxes, cabinets, bags, barrels, large pots and bins. All containers are used to hold items, from personal possessions to gems, alcohol, quarry bush leaves, and even living creatures, but their use is context-sensitive, so you cannot use your barrels for storing coins, but you can build a bag as a dwarf's personal container, analogous to a chest.

Chests, coffers, boxes and bags are subsumed under boxes and bags in the status stocks screen, and these can be built as "containers" from the building menu to satisfy the "Needs: X Chests" requirement for nobles. Each other container type has its own entry.

To examine a container's contents when the container is in a stockpile, select the object location with the k key. Then, use + and - until the container is highlighted, then press enter. Press enter again to select the contents, if any. The items command can be used to see items that are stored in a built container. See also, stocks.

Barrels, bins, bags, pots

Barrels are wooden or metal containers that are useful for storing items in a food stockpile and are used to store alcohol, plants, seed bags, meat, fish, dwarven syrup, quarry bush leaf bags, flour bags and dye bags, cooked food, fat and tallow, and all prepared organs. They are made at a Carpenter's workshop with 1 log or at a Forge with 3 bars of metal. Barrels can be disabled in a stockpile to prevent haulers from running off with everything else inside to pick up a stray seed.

Pots, an alternative for barrels, can be made of wood, stone, clay, glass, or metal. Pots can also be used to store alcohol and other related liquids, though clay pots (earthenware) must be glazed to hold liquids. Pots hold the same amount as barrels (60 total units of food, or 30 units of alcohol) and weigh one fourth as much as a barrel of equivalent material. Except for a few barrel-specific requirements, pots are generally a superior replacement.

Bins are containers, again made from wood or metal, used for most non-food items. They are sent to all the other stockpiles (with the exclusion of the refuse, stone and graveyard piles) and will hold much larger stacks of items, making organizing those endless piles of +giant cave spider silk socks+ and trade goods much easier to manage. They are made at a Carpenter's workshop with 1 log or at a Forge with 3 bars of metal. Bars and blocks will stack into a bin, but not into any other container, so a stockpile with bar/block enabled will default to requesting bins.

Bags are used to store seeds, quarry bush leaves, mill products (flour, sugar, dye) and sand ("powders"). They are made from plant fiber (or silk) cloth, leather, or adamantine. Bags are used to gather and transport powders the same way buckets are used to carry water. Bags can be placed inside other containers, such as barrels. Bags can be placed as furniture and then function as coffers (see below). They are made at a Clothier's shop with 1 cloth or at a Leather works with 1 leather.

Empty barrels, bins and bags can all be stored in a furniture stockpile.

Cabinets and "chests"

These two containers are both furniture items only. They must be built in rooms assigned to dwarves in order to fulfill the dwarves' room requirements. Cabinets are used to store clothing, and chests are used to store everything else.

Also, the hospital needs containers for its supply-storage.

A stone chest is called a coffer, and a glass chest is called a box, but they are used for the same purpose. Bags can also be built as chests.

Once built as furniture, their contents can be viewed with the t menu.

Quick Reference

Container	Stockpile	Furniture	Solid Capacity (in cm3)	Liquid Capacity	Stores	Stone	Wood	Glass	Metal	Cloth	Leather	Ceramic
Barrel	Furniture > Type > Barrels	No	6000	6000	Food, Alcohol, Extracts, Milk, Lye, Bags	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Bin	Furniture > Type > Bins	No	6000		Items, Jugs, Flasks	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Bucket	Furniture > Type > Buckets	No		600	Milk, Lye, Water2	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Flask Vial Waterskin	Finished Goods > Type > Flasks	No		180	Alcohol, Water Vials: Extracts	No	No	Vial	Flask	No	Waterskin	No
Backpack	Finished Goods > Type > Backpacks	No	3000		Food	No	No	No	No	Adamantine3	Yes	No
Quiver	Finished Goods > Type > Quivers	No	1200		Ammunition	No	No	No	No	Adamantine3	Yes	No
Bag Chest Coffer Box	Furniture > Type > Boxes and Bags	Special	6000		Bags: Seeds, Leaves, Powders Other: Owned items	Coffer	Chest	Box	Chest	Bag	Bag	No
Pouch	Finished Goods > Type > Tools[Verify]	No	100		Coins (in adventurer mode)	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Cabinet	Furniture > Type > Cabinets	Yes	6000		Owned clothing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Jug	Finished Goods > Type > Tools	No		1000	Royal Jelly, Honey, Rock Nut Oil	Yes4	Yes4	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Large pot	Finished Goods > Type > Large pots/food storage	No	6000	6000	Food, Alcohol, Bags	Yes4	Yes4	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Nest box	Finished Goods > Type > Tools	Yes	200		Eggs	Yes4	Yes4	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Hive	Finished Goods > Type > Tools	Yes	500	500	Honey Bees, Royal Jelly, Honeycomb	Yes4	Yes4	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Wheelbarrow	Furniture > Type > Wheelbarrows	No	10000		hauled items	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Minecart	Furniture > Type > Minecarts	No5	50000	50000	hauled items; scooped, but not loaded: Water, Magma	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Cage Terrarium Aquarium	Animals	Yes & No	6000	6000	Creatures, Vermin Aquarium: Water	No	Cage	Terrarium Aquarium	Cage	No	No	No
Animal trap	Animals	Yes & No	3000		Vermin, Bait	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Coffin Casket Sarcophagus	Furniture > Type > Coffins	Yes	6000		Creature/Vermin Corpses/Remains	Coffin	Casket	Coffin	Sarcophagus	No	No	No
Weapon rack	Furniture > Type > Weapon Racks	Yes	6000		Weapons	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Armor stand	Furniture > Type > Armor Stands	Yes	6000		Armor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

¹ - Large Pots can be made from any hard material, including wood and metal

² - Used to carry water, can store Milk and Lye but will be emptied into Barrels

³ - Backpacks and quivers can only be made from Adamantine cloth, though ones made from other cloth can be purchased from caravans

⁴ - Rock and Wood versions of these items are made in Craftsdwarf's workshop rather than Carpenter's workshop or Mason's workshop as usual.

⁵ - A minecart can be placed where you need it and used for storage, but technically it's not built furniture

• Tools have capacity set in units 10 times smaller; liquids take container capacity 60 per 1 unit, i.e. capacity 180 = 3 units of water, 50000 = 833 units, etc.
• Large Pots are like Barrels but with different capacities.
• Bins are like Barrels but store different stuff.
• Buckets are used for temporary storage of Milk, Lye, and Water.
• Jugs are mini containers for honey and royal jelly and can be stored inside Bins, in this sense they are like Bags.
• Bags are mini containers for powders and can be stored inside Barrels/Large Pots if holding food items.
• Bags are like Chests/Coffers/Boxes made of cloth or leather, can be placed as furniture in the same fashion.
• Flasks/Waterskins/Vials are different names for the same containers depending on the material it's made from.
• Chests/Coffers/Boxes are different names for the same piece of furniture depending on the material it's made from.
• A terrarium can be designated as an Aquarium. A dwarf will use a bucket to fill it with water. If deconstructed it'll stay filled with Water[10] and can even be sold with the water inside. The water costs 1☼ each, so you get 10☼ for the water.
• A hive won't be destroyed if you don't have a stockpile for its products. You could use t on the hive and dump the item to use it.

Spilling

A container item that moves fast and collides with an obstacle spills its contents. If the obstacle permits (i.e. fortification), these continue to move in the same direction with some scattering, otherwise displaced 1 tile above and retain velocity. This was introduced for minecarts, but applies at least to other tools and cages. If the tile above also contains an obstacle and the spilled item is a container, the process repeats on the next tick, until it runs out of either nested containers or wall height (see the first link above).

Bugs

• Hauling jobs block access to all the items in the destination containers until the hauling is complete. This often results in cancellation spam and work delays.^Bug:9004 One workaround is creating a "feeder stockpile" with containers disabled.
• Container size works in mysterious ways. Items only have "SIZE" determining the volume of their material and thus weight, but no separate external volume. For containers, CAPACITY is not added to it, i.e. they all are treated like soft bags: you can put 30 other bags inside a bag, and you can load a minecart with minecarts. At the same time, containers are assumed to not be soft bags - while weight of contents adds to the container's, the ambiguous SIZE is constant. Together, these facts make containers nest-able indefinitely, as long as CAPACITY>SIZE (which normally is the case) and potentially act like bags of holding - have the same stated volume whether empty or holding an arbitrary total amount of items via nested containers. The only nesting that normally happens in Fortress mode is minecart > barrel > bag, but this still makes a minor exploit.
• Stacks made by a single job tend to ignore capacity. For one, dwarves picking up items may stuff a quantum stockpile worth of items into one container.^Bug:6063 The same applies to brewing and extracting.
• Conversely, a freshly produced stack, no matter how small, will be put into a new container and not added into the old ones. Which may be justified with brewing, but also happens to production of items/substances without quality modifiers.

V · T · E Buildings
Workshops • Furnaces
Furniture	Animal trap • Anvil • Armor stand • Bed • Blocks • Box (chest • coffer) • Bucket • Cabinet • Cage (aquarium • terrarium) • Coffin (casket • sarcophagus) • Restraint • Slab • Statue • Table • Throne (chair) • Weapon rack
Tools	Altar • Bookcase • Display (display case • pedestal) • Hive • Nest box
Access	Bars • Bridge • Door (portal) • Floodgate • Grate • Hatch • Road • Window
Constructions	Floor • Fortification • Ramp • Stairs • Wall
Machine and trap parts	Axle • Gear assembly • Lever • Mechanism • Millstone • Pipe section • Pressure plate • Roller • Screw pump • Support • Trap • Water wheel • Windmill
Other buildings	Archery target • Vermin catcher's shop • Siege engine • Trade depot • Wagon • Well
Related articles	Design strategies • Bedroom design • Furniture industry