Convert Kilobytes to Gigabytes

About converting Kilobytes to Gigabytes

Kilobytes (KB) and Gigabytes (GB) are both units of digital storage, so converting between them is a single multiplication: multiply your Kilobytes figure by 0.000001. Ten Kilobytes comes to 0.00001 Gigabytes, and a hundred works out at 0.0001 Gigabytes.

Rule of thumb: going from Kilobytes to Gigabytes divides, so the figure always shrinks — it takes about 1,000,000 Kilobytes to make a single Gigabyte. If your answer came out bigger, 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 Gigabyte?

A gigabyte is a billion bytes in SI terms, and it is the unit consumers actually shop in: phone storage, mobile data allowances, game downloads. It is also where the decimal-versus-binary split gets genuinely interesting, because the answer depends on the product. Drives and data plans are sold in decimal gigabytes; memory is not, and an "8 GB" RAM module really is 8 GiB, because memory is physically addressed in powers of two and could not be built in round decimal sizes. Windows then reports both using binary units labelled "GB".

To put both in perspective: a kilobyte is a paragraph or two of plain text, while an hour of HD streaming video runs to a few gigabytes.

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