How long doesWatermelonlast in the fridge?
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Here the freezer does not so much extend the answer as replace it. 4 days in the sealed fridge becomes 12 months in the freezer: 90 times longer, and days turning into months. The pantry from the day of purchase figure alone spans 1 day to 2 days, a factor of two.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Fruits.
- In the freezer12 months
- Unopened · in the pantry1 day to 2 days
- Unopened · in the fridge3 days to 4 days
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. 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 pantry, from the day you bought it. Or until ripe.
Turning the range into a date
The window here is 4 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. Each clock has its own field: a figure counted from the day of purchase cannot be counted from the day you opened it.
- In the freezerUse by12 months after the day you stored it
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 day to 2 days after the day you bought it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by3 days to 4 days after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 3 days to 4 days in the fridge. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Watermelon is raw and whole. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. 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 Watermelon past its 3 days to 4 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.
Two places, and one of them is the wrong one
The USDA rates two places for Watermelon in one state and they disagree: 3 days to 4 days in the fridge against 1 day to 2 days in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.
Is that a long time?
7 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 4 days, so they all share place 75 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 16% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 3 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 4 days, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
10 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Grapes, Papaya and Honeydew. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 8 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Tamarind at 6 months.
- Grapes1 week sealed in the fridge
- Papaya1 week sealed in the fridge
- Honeydew2 days sealed in the pantry
- Cantaloupe5 days sealed in the fridge
- Baby carrots4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Apples4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Pomegranate1 month sealed in the fridge
- Tamarind6 months sealed 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 22 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 Avocados, Cherimoya and Guava, 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 4 days rather than at the 3 days sealed in the fridge its own answer prints.
- Avocados4 days3 days in the fridge
- Cherimoya4 days4 days in the fridge
- Guava4 days2 days in the fridge
- Apricots5 days2 days in the fridge
- Bananas3 days3 days in the fridge
- Peaches5 days3 days in the fridge
- Plantains5 days3 days in the fridge
- Strawberries3 days2 days sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 4 days, the Produce aisle gives 48 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Lemongrass at 9 days against this one's 4 days; after it come Basil, Bean sprouts and Cherry tomatoes. 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.
- Lemongrass9 days7 days sealed in the fridge
- 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
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 495 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 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. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. It is filed under Fresh Fruits inside Produce, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.
Where these numbers come from
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.
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.