Convert Kilobytes to Bits

About converting Kilobytes to Bits

Kilobytes (KB) and Bits (bit) are both units of digital storage, so converting between them is a single multiplication: multiply your Kilobytes figure by 8,000. Ten Kilobytes comes to 80,000 Bits, and a hundred works out at 800,000 Bits.

Rule of thumb: going from Kilobytes to Bits multiplies, so the figure always grows — one Kilobyte is already 8,000 Bits. If your answer came out smaller, you have the conversion the wrong way round.

What is a Kilobyte?

A kilobyte is 1,000 bytes here, because this site uses the SI meaning of "kilo" — the same thousand as in kilometer, and the same one storage manufacturers print on the box. Computing muddied this by borrowing the prefix for 1,024, the nearest power of two, and Windows still reports storage that way while labelling it "KB". The IEC tried to settle the argument in 1998 by inventing the kibibyte (KiB) for the binary version, so the two could finally be told apart; adoption has been patchy. At this scale the gap is trivial either way.

What is a Bit?

A bit is a single binary digit — one yes or no, the smallest thing a computer can distinguish. The name is a contraction of "binary digit", credited to John Tukey and made famous by Claude Shannon’s 1948 paper founding information theory. The practical thing to know is that bits and bytes live in different places: connection and network speeds are quoted in bits per second, while file sizes are in bytes. That is why a 100 Mbps line downloads at about 12.5 MB/s and people assume they have been cheated. Nobody has — the two figures are counting different things.

To put both in perspective: a kilobyte is a paragraph or two of plain text, while a bit is a single yes-or-no.

The converter above updates as you type, and the table lists common values for quick reference. Need the opposite direction? Use the Bits to Kilobytes converter, or browse all Digital Storage converters.