Short answer: the cups were never the problem. Lids are. They do not stack, they do not nest, and they do not dry. Store them dry, on edge, one deep, somewhere you can see all of them at once.
Here is why the drawer keeps filling up, the one habit worth building, and the four places people actually put them.
It is not that you own too many cups
A cup is easy to store. It stands up, it lines up, and one shelf holds a row of them.
A lid is a different object. It is wide and shallow, so it wastes the space above it. It is round with a flat edge, so it will not nest with the one beside it. It has a rubber gasket and moving tabs, so it never sits flush against anything. And they multiply faster than the cups do, because one tumbler often comes with two or three lids and you keep the old one when you buy a new cup.
So six cups on a shelf is tidy. Twelve lids in a drawer is a pile.
The habit worth building: dry before you store
This is the part that matters more than where they go.
Lids are where tumblers grow mold, and the reason is the same one that makes a toilet brush holder smell: water gets trapped somewhere dark that never gets air. Cleaning experts speaking to TODAY point at the spout protector specifically, warning that it can harbor mold if left unchecked and that you should be removing all the pieces of the lid when you clean it. America's Test Kitchen makes the same point about the parts a dishwasher cannot reach, noting that a dishwasher cycle usually cannot clear gunk trapped under the silicone gaskets or plastic tabs in these lids.
Both give the same advice about what comes next: take the lid apart, and dry every piece completely before it goes anywhere.
That one step decides whether your lid storage is a shelf or a petri dish. A lid put away damp, stacked under four other lids, in a closed drawer, has everything it needs.
Where to store tumbler lids: four options
1. Loose in a drawer
Free, and it is where almost everyone starts.
The catch: lids scratch each other, the one you want is always at the bottom, and a damp lid in a closed drawer is the exact situation above. It also quietly eats a whole drawer that could hold something flat.
2. A bin or a basket
Better than loose. One place to look, and you can lift the whole thing out.
The catch: it is still a pile, just a contained one. Lids sit face down on each other, air does not move through it, and you still dig.
3. A stand on the counter
Lids come up off the flat and sit held apart, so you can see all of them and air reaches both faces. It is the right shape for the object, and it costs nothing but a patch of counter.
This is what our Tumbler Lid Organizer — Vertical does. A steel post on a plastic base: lids slide on through the drinking opening and stack upward, held apart. It takes a 3.5 inch footprint, stands 7.5 inches tall, holds up to ten lids, and needs no tools at all. You put it down and use it. $14.99, rated 4.6 from 150 reviews.
The catch: counter space. It is small, but if your counters are already full it is one more thing standing on them and one more thing to wipe around.
4. Under the cabinet
The gap under a wall cabinet is empty in almost every kitchen. Lids hang there out of the way, still visible, still open to the air, and the counter stays clear.
That is what our Tumbler Lid Organizer — Under-Cabinet does. It mounts with 3M adhesive, or with screws if you would rather make it permanent, and holds six to eight lids depending on thickness. The bracket itself is 2.75 by 1.9 inches. $14.99, rated 4.25 from 56 reviews.
The catch: you have to commit to a spot. An adhesive mount is not something you move every week, and you need a hand's clearance under the cabinet to get a lid on and off.
Both are patent-pending ELYPRO designs. Both fit Stanley, Yeti, Hydro Flask and most standard round tumbler lids that have a drinking opening. Neither fits straw-only lids.
Which of ours suits which kitchen
Take the counter one if you have a spare corner of worktop, you want it within reach, and you are closer to ten lids than to six.
Take the under-cabinet one if the counter has to stay clear, you are happy to stick something down for good, and six to eight lids covers you.
Take both if the lids have spread into more than one part of the kitchen. They are the same price and they solve the same problem in two different places.
When ours is the wrong call
Skip both if you own two lids. Two lids are not a storage problem, they are two lids.
Skip both if your lids are the straw-only kind with no mouth opening. There is nothing for them to hang on, and they will not fit.
Skip the under-cabinet one if you rent and adhesive mounts make you nervous, or if your cabinets sit too close to the counter. Measure before you buy.
Skip the counter one if your counters are already full. It is small, but it is not nothing.
They are the right call when the lids have outgrown the drawer, you want to see all of them at once, and you would rather they dried between uses than sat stacked and damp.
Questions people ask
How many lids does one person end up with?
More than they expect. One tumbler often ships with more than one lid, and people keep the old lid when they buy the next cup. A customer of ours put it plainly: I have quite the collection of Yeti cups and subsequently a large number of lids floating around a drawer.
Can I just run the lids through the dishwasher and put them away?
Run them through by all means, but do not treat that as done. The point both sources above make is that a dishwasher cycle does not reach under the gasket or the sliding tabs, and it does not dry those places either. Take the lid apart every couple of weeks, clean the hidden parts by hand, and let everything dry before it goes back together.
Does storing them on edge really help?
It helps for the same reason a dish rack works. Held apart, water runs off instead of pooling, and air reaches both faces. Stacked flat in a drawer, the underside of every lid sits against the face of the next one.
Will these fit a 40 oz Stanley lid?
Yes, and Yeti and Hydro Flask, and most standard round lids with a mouth opening. The exception is straw-only lids.
What about the cups themselves?
Different problem, different shape. If it is mugs rather than tumblers filling your cabinet, we wrote about that separately: how to fit more mugs in a kitchen cabinet.
