The gallbladder is a small, muscular, pear-shaped sac tucked under the liver on the right side of the abdomen. Its job is to store and concentrate bile — the greenish digestive fluid the liver produces continuously — and to release it into the duodenum when fatty food arrives from the stomach. Bile salts emulsify fats into tiny droplets, giving pancreatic lipase the surface area it needs to digest them, and they aid absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. The gallbladder is not essential: after its surgical removal (cholecystectomy), bile drips continuously into the intestine, and most people adapt, though some notice looser stools after fatty meals.