How long do Apricots last in the fridge?

Turning the range into a date

Apricots keep 2 days in the fridge. One row, one deadline: 5 days in the refrigerator, counted from the day it went in rather than the day it was made.

• In the fridgeUse by2 days to 5 days after the day you stored it

How vague the source is about this one

The source is unusually unsure about this one. Its widest range, the refrigerator, runs from 2 days to 5 days, a factor of 2.5 between the cautious end and the optimistic one, on a figure most people read as a single number. On the same shelf it sits 66 of 89, between Cucumbers at 6 days and Peaches, nectarines, plums, pears, sapote at 5 days. Apricot in the source list is this same food.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The refrigerator is the only place the USDA gives this item a storage time, as it does for 64 of the 466 foods the USDA lists. It adds notes for other methods without giving them a time. The pantry slot is not blank either: the source answers it in words, below.

• In the freezernot recommended
• In the pantryUntil ripe
• In the fridge2 days to 5 days

Where the USDA answers in words instead of days

1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the pantry it answers Until ripe, so the clock is the fruit's own ripening rather than a count of days.

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 2 handling notes to this item, reproduced below word for word. None of them is a storage time: they qualify the figures above rather than replacing them. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

In the refrigerator. Timeline for refrigerator applies to ripe fruit.

In the pantry. Ripe is when this item is tender, fully developed and ready to eat.

Is it still safe to eat, or just past its best?

The answer at the top of this page reads 2 days to 5 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Apricots is raw and whole. Past it, whether it has gone bad is yours to judge by look and smell: this window rates quality, not the day it turns hazardous.

Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Apricots past its 2 days to 5 days in the fridge window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

9 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 5 days, so they all share place 66 of 89 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 30% of them.

Items that behave the same way

All 4 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 5 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.

• Peaches, nectarines, plums, pears, sapotekeeps exactly as long
• Beans and peas, green, fava, lima, soybean, wax, snow, sugar snapkeeps exactly as long
• Broccoli and broccoli raab (rapini)keeps exactly as long
• Bagged greens, leaf, spinach, lettuce, etc.keeps exactly as long
• Avocadoskeeps 3 days in the fridge
• Cherimoyakeeps 4 days in the fridge

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 22 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, refrigerator, and 8 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Potato salad, Pasta salad and Coleslaw, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the 8 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Kiwi fruit at 6 days. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 64 products match this one.

• Potato salad3 days in the fridge
• Pasta salad3 days in the fridge
• Coleslaw3 days in the fridge
• Egg salad3 days in the fridge
• Casseroles3 days in the fridge
• Avocados3 days in the fridge
• Guava2 days in the fridge
• Kiwi fruit3 days in the fridge

The rest of the Fresh Fruits shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Fruits shelf together with 29 others, and 19 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut at 1 year down to Cherries at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Peaches, Plantains and Avocados, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 5 days rather than at the 2 days in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Peaches5 days3 days in the fridge
• Plantains5 days3 days in the fridge
• Avocados4 days3 days in the fridge
• Cherimoya4 days4 days in the fridge
• Guava4 days2 days in the fridge
• Kiwi fruit6 days3 days in the fridge
• Watermelon4 days3 days sealed in the fridge
• Bananas3 days3 days in the fridge

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 5 days, the Produce aisle gives 47 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Basil at 10 days against this one's 5 days; after it come Bean sprouts, Cherry tomatoes and Blueberries. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 1 entry in the category keeps half as long or less, Corn on the cob among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.

• Basil10 days10 days in the fridge
• Bean sprouts10 days5 days sealed in the fridge
• Cherry tomatoes10 days10 days in the pantry
• Blueberries2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
• Melons2 weeks2 days in the fridge once opened
• Artichokes2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
• Bamboo shoots2 weeks5 days in the fridge once opened
• Beets2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 249 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 1 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the source prints its binding figure in days, so the window at the top of this page is the source's own number untouched. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.

Where these numbers come from

How long does this food keep in the refrigerator, in the freezer, in the pantry? Can you freeze it, and how much of its shelf life is left once the package is open? Every answer on this page is the USDA’s own published figure, one of the 9 it keeps per food, and never an estimate of ours.

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: Apricot

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.