ALEX Drawer Dimensions and Interior Measurements!

IKEA’s ALEX drawers are one of the most popular drawer sets out there.

Whether you’re figuring out the drawer’s footprint or finding the best ALEX drawer organizers, you need to know the drawer’s dimensions. In this article, we’re going to cover all the important ALEX drawer sizes, inside and out!

I am going to use my own ALEX drawer sets as the basis for these measurements. The set I am measuring today has two small top drawers and three medium-sized bottom drawers.  

IKEA gives us some general dimensions on their ALEX drawer product page. However, there are many more dimensions of interest. Also, I found that some dimensions were a bit different than what IKEA listed.

ALEX Drawer Exterior Dimensions

Exterior dimensions are all the outsider dimensions of parts you can actually see. These are useful for considering tabletop depths, potential desk height, footprint, and more! 

Overall Drawer Set Dimension

Small Drawer Front Panel Size

Medium Drawer Front Panel Size

ALEX Drawer Interior Dimensions

IKEA has a few dimensions of the drawers on their website, but they are only exterior dimensions. Hardly useful information if you ask me. 

Most people want to know what they can actually fit inside the drawers. We did the work for you.

A quick note about the drawer interior height. The max height object that can fit in the drawer will be listed as HEIGHT. This dimension is measured from the bottom of the drawer to the top of the front panel.

There is also a SIDEWALL HEIGHT dimension which is the distance between the bottom of the drawer to the side walls of the drawer. Use this dimension if you don’t want items to stick up above the side walls

Now let’s get into the actual measured interior dimensions of the IKEA ALEX drawers. This will give you a good idea of what you can fit inside. 

Small Drawer Interior Dimensions

These small drawers are great for the little things. I use mine to store small items like common office supplies as well as organize batteries and such.  We have a dedicated article on the best drawer inserts for IKEA ALEX drawers.

Medium Drawer Interior Dimensions

These drawers do my heavy lifting, literally. I use much larger open-top compartments to organize this area. These drawers carry some camera gear, a ton of books, bills, paperwork – you name it. 

Check out our article on organizing deep drawers to get the most out of these larger ALEX drawers.

How We Measured ALEX Drawer Size

These dimensions are my own measurements of my ALEX drawers. I noticed differences between my own two drawers, so you will likely see normal manufacturing variation as well. 

Some dimensions were different by as much as ⅛ inches or roughly 0.3 cm. This is due to general manufacturing tolerances and is completely normal. Keep this in mind when using these dimensions. 

I have noted dimensions taken directly from IKEA’s website with an asterisk ( * ). I measured dimensions under 6 inches with Mitutoyo Digital Calipers, and all other dimensions were measured with a general-purpose measuring tape. 

Because of the manufacturing tolerances, it’s not useful for me to go beyond one decimal place for these measurements. Instead of listing “4.3915001 inches”, I simply list “4.4 inches”. 

Before You Go

If IKEA stores are out of reach or charging too much for shipping a set of ALEX drawers, check out our article on the best ALEX drawer alternatives. 

You also might be interested in our dedicated article on organizing desk drawers for maximum functionality