I’ve Been Using Deep Freezers for Over 15 Years—Here Are the Best for Every Home

My Top Pick

Magic Chef Chest Freezer

$219 $189 at Home Depot

I bought this small Magic Chef chest freezer in 2007 and continue to load it full of homegrown produce and homemade foods. It just keeps chugging. It was my freezer of choice because I can’t fit a bigger one in the mudroom of our 500-square-foot cabin, but the size really is ideal for a couple—any more space and I would likely freeze more food than we can eat over the year, and a smaller unit would leave us short.

The current model is essentially the same as my decades-old one. Where a shelf is formed by the housing for the mechanical parts, it still has a divider to keep bagged food in place. I can stack about 15 quarts of my most-used foods in this space, from raspberries and cherry tomatoes to grilled corn kernels. Where my freezer has one basket that can slide across the freezer or be lifted out to access this space, the current model has two. I find this top basket so handy for storing food I freeze in cubes—like pesto and curry paste—I would quickly both of them. Other upgrades to this manual defrost freezer include an interior LED light.

The Details: Chest freezer; manual defrost; 7.0 cubic feet; 35.4 x 32.9 x 21.8 inches; 69.4 pounds

Best Budget

Insignia 14.0 Cu. Ft. Garage-Ready Chest Freezer

$350 at Best Buy

When my friends needed an additional chest freezer a couple of years ago, they picked up this manual defrost model based on size and price, and have been happy with its performance. This Best Buy brand doesn’t have the same name recognition as the top manufacturers, but it’s well-built and withstands Montana’s freezing winter temperatures and sweltering summer heat without issues.

This unit was just as easy to install and set up as my friends’ similarly sized Frigidaire freezers and turned out to be about 25 pounds lighter, which helped when getting it upstairs. It also has slightly better energy usage and should save them money in the long run.

The three included baskets help with organization, and an interior light helps with a search for dinner ingredients even when the sun sets before 5 pm. The 14.0-cubic-foot model can be locked, and it’s a little wider and shallower than similarly sized brands, making it easier to find the bottom when digging through the contents.

The Details: Chest freezer; manual defrost; 14.0 cubic feet; 54.6 x 32.3 x 28.25 inches; 112.4 pounds

Best Upright

Maytag Frost Free Upright Freezer

$1,099 $798 at Home Depot View on Appliancesconnection.com View on Maytag.com

Most companies tweak their deep freezers every few years and replace them with new models. So it says something when Maytag continues to stock the exact model my parents bought in 2016. It’s so reliable that they keep selling it—and offer an impressive 10-year warranty on the compressor parts if there ever were a failure.

Unlike a chest freezer, the upright design relieves my parents from bending over and digging through bins of food to find what they want. Store-bought packaged foods stack neatly on the adjustable shelves, and bags of homegrown fruit stay surprisingly steady when frozen flat and stacked. A couple of strategically placed aftermarket bins keep awkward packages of shrimp and salmon from sliding out onto the floor when I open the freezer door (and hint at my dad’s career as an engineer).

The door shelves are ideally spaced for small containers of homemade freezer jam and larger ones of applesauce, soups, and sauces. The unit is frost-free, so there’s never an issue with ice buildup along the door or walls and no maintenance beyond cleaning.

The Details: Upright freezer; frost-free; 15.7 cubic feet; 30.25 x 60.75 x 29.1 inches; 196 pounds

Best for Garage

Frigidaire 14.8 cu. ft. Chest Freezer

View on Amazon $598 at Wayfair $600 at Best Buy

Some other friends have found this chest freezer so reliable that they own two. One tends to be dedicated to locally raised beef and pork—and the year’s elk if they are lucky—with the other filled by homegrown produce, favorite snacks, and readymade meals when they hit a sweet sale price. A pair of lift-out storage bins helps keep small items organized. To organize the deep main well, they simply hoard a series of perfectly sized cardboard boxes that make it easy to reach in and grab a desired cut.

Beyond the manageable size, my friends chose this model twice because it can be placed anywhere on their property, from the basement to the garage to an outbuilding. This is often called “garage-ready,” meaning the freezer operates efficiently even in winter temperatures as low as 0°F and summer ones up to 110°F.

This manual-defrost freezer can be locked to secure hundreds of dollars worth of food or keep small children from opening it unattended. It also comes with optional locking casters that make it easier to move.

The Details: Chest freezer; manual defrost; 14.8 cubic feet; 55.75 x 32.5 x 29.6 inches; 137 pounds

Best Small

Danby 6.0 cu. ft. Upright Freezer

$550 at Target $719 at Wayfair $610 at Home Depot

Many companies make small chest freezers, with a small footprint to match, but the upright options are more limited. This alone makes Danby’s 6.0-cubic-foot freezer an easy choice for my Best Small pick: It just needs about 2 square feet of floor space, including a couple of inches on the sides for ventilation. But this model has plenty of other features to love.

This garage-ready freezer can be tucked in almost anywhere despite potential ambient temperature swings. It’s split into drawers and shelves, giving flexibility when storing large awkward items like a whole ham but also keeping foods that refuse to stack well in their place, like salmon fillets and bagged shrimp. There’s no door storage; the door seals as tight and flat as a chest freezer lid, maximizing the shelf and drawer space.

The model earned Energy Star certification for its efficiency, and it goes a step further by using the eco-friendly R600a refrigerant as a coolant. The manual-defrost unit also offers a 5-year parts and labor warranty rarely seen for standalone freezers.

The Details: Upright freezer; manual defrost; 6.0 cubic feet; 21.42 x 47.38 x 22.48 inches; 90.39 pounds

Best Midsize

Frigidaire 13.0 Cu. Ft. Upright Freezer

View on Amazon View on Build.com $580 at Best Buy

Upright freezers typically have less usable space per cubic foot because they need more empty space for interior air circulation and are broken up by shelving and door storage. This makes a 13.0-cubic-foot upright a versatile size for everyone from a solo sale-savvy shopper to a small family.

My sister-in-law runs a prior version of this frost-free model, manufactured in 2018, in her unheated Pacific Northwest garage without issue year-round. Its shelves have enough space to hold the Thanksgiving turkey, and the door bins keep hard-to-stack containers and bagged food in place. The current garage-ready model upgrades her freezer with an additional shelf and has made them adjustable, her primary complaint about the older version.

Frigidaire has put a couple of features into this freezer to ensure that food will stay frozen. The seal is designed to withstand a 2-day power outage, and an alarm lets you know if the door is left open or if another issue causes the internal temperature to rise above 21°F.

The Details: Upright freezer; frost-free; 13.0 cubic feet; 27.75 x 67.75 x 26 inches; 142.5 pounds

Best Large

GE 15.7 Cu. Ft. Manual Defrost Chest Freezer

$881 at Wayfair $881 at Home Depot $882 at Best Buy

Household deep freezers come as large as 25 cubic feet, and just hearing my mother-in-law’s story about moving one of these behemoths, fully loaded, across five states is enough to convince me the Best Large freezer isn’t necessarily the biggest one available. GE’s 15.7-cubic-foot chest freezer can hold around 400 pounds of food, and its long body helps keep the layers from getting too deep. To further help with organization, it comes with four storage bins, more than any other chest freezer I’ve seen, that sit on rails at two levels so they can slide above other contents or be lifted out with ease.

Surpassing the typical energy savings of chest freezers, GE built this model to Energy Star standards. My sister has owned a smaller version of this manual-defrost freezer (sadly no longer available) since 2014 and has been happy with its worry-free operation and efficiency. Its rectangular shape tucks neatly into a little basement storage room across from shelving for dry goods far better than a boxier design could.

Besides being efficient and garage-ready, this freezer features a high-temperature alarm, interior LED light, and built-in lock. If you still feel you need more space, it’s available as a 21.7-cubic-foot model.

The Details: Chest freezer; manual defrost; 15.68 cubic feet; 65 x 33.4 x 28.5 inches; 168 pounds

Best Energy Efficient

Midea 17.0 Cu. Ft. Upright Convertible Freezer

$799 $599 at Lowe's

Energy Star certification and a few other perks helped Midea’s 17.0-cubic-foot freezer claim the efficiency category. Its annual energy usage still surpasses all of the chest freezers I recommend, but in the upright class, it edges out most similarly sized competitors on energy savings per year.

This frost-free freezer initially caught my eye for its convertible design: If you only have space for one extra appliance but think you may need fridge, not freezer, space someday, this unit switches modes at the push of a button. It’s laid out to function in either mode, with two deep bins below the main shelving and full-width door storage. The four metal shelves give plenty of stability, a feature I’ve appreciated ever since my husband had to reinforce our refrigerator shelves to support all my half-gallon jars of fermented foods.

This model can withstand temperatures from 0 to 110°F, making it a suitable unit for a garage or basement. It comes with a standard 1-year parts and labor warranty and a 10-year compressor warranty. Since it’s sold exclusively at Lowe’s, you can tack on one of their protection plans with coverage for up to 5 years.

The Details: Upright freezer; frost-free; 17.0 cubic feet; 32.8 x 64.9 x 28.9 inches; 188.3 pounds

Best Design

GE Garage Ready Upright Freezer

$1,149 at Amazon $748 at Wayfair $899 $749 at Lowe's

Deep freezers tend to be fairly boxy and uniform inside and out, and lack the flashy add-ons that make people ooh and ahh over other appliances. But adding up all the little details makes this model my choice for Best Design. It has all the features I love to see in an upright freezer: garage-ready so it can be placed in the widest range of locations, frost-free for minimal maintenance, and Energy Star-certified for high efficiency and lower electricity bills. It then goes on to add a few more that make it hard to pass up.

Two of the four glass shelves can be adjusted above the full-size clear bin. A light in the top panel helps when sorting through the freezer’s contents, and an alarm sounds if the door is left open or another issue causes the interior temperature to climb. The freezer can be locked, and GE claims its tight door seal will keep food frozen for 48 hours if there’s a power outage. In perhaps its most forward-thinking design move, GE is already putting R600a refrigerant in its lineup of freezers, making this model more environmentally friendly than most competitors.

The Details: Upright freezer; frost-free; 14.1 cubic feet; 28 x 62 x 32 inches; 168 pounds