Tote sizing is usually described in adjectives — roomy, oversized, everyday. Adjectives are useless when you are trying to work out whether your things will fit. Here is what the numbers mean instead, using the measurements from the two totes we make.
The three numbers that matter
Width at the top. Both of our designs are 16 inches wide. That is the measurement that decides whether something long goes in flat or has to go in at an angle.
Height. Both are 13 inches tall. Height is what stops things sticking out of the opening.
Gusset, or depth. Design 1 is 5 inches deep, Design 2 is 5.5 inches. Depth is the number most people ignore and then regret. A tote with a shallow gusset holds a lot on paper and very little in practice, because everything has to lie flat against everything else.
Handle drop decides how you carry it
Handle drop is the distance from the top of the handle to the top of the bag. Ours is roughly 11 to 12 inches, on 1.5 inch webbing that is 24 inches long overall.
Under about 9 inches and a bag is a hand carry. Around 11 to 12 inches it clears most shoulders over a jacket. Much beyond that and the bag swings at the hip.
What we deliberately do not tell you
You will not find a litre capacity or a laptop size on our product pages. Both would be easy to write and neither has been measured on finished production stock, so publishing them would be guessing in a way that sounds authoritative.
The measurements above are the reliable guide. If you have a specific item you need to fit, measure it against 16 × 13 × 5 inches and you will have your answer.
Structure changes usable space
Two totes with identical measurements can hold noticeably different amounts depending on whether they hold their shape. Both of ours are built up as outer canvas, 2 mm foam, lining, and a 2 to 3 mm board at the base, so the sides stay upright and the base stays flat.
An unstructured tote collapses inward when it is half empty, and the space you measured is not the space you get.