KB to MB Converter

1. How many KiloBytes in a MegaByte?
2. Difference between KB and MB
3. How to convert KiloBytes to MegaBytes?
4. KB to MB conversion table

    How many KiloBytes in a MegaByte?

There are two contradictory definitions of the megabyte. One is the traditional binary definition (metrics are defined as powers of 2) in which there are exactly 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte. This is the definition you would learn in your computer science class and it is the one most developers and, consequently, most operating systems (e.g. Windows) use. The other definition states that there are 1000 kilobytes in a megabyte and it is the definition adopted by the International System of Units (SI). Despite its wide adoption in all kinds of central organizations, it is yet to see widespread recognition after decades of its existence.

The confusion was so widespread that the International Electrotechnical Commission proposed a new metric: the Mebibyte (symbol: MiB) in place of the binary MB definition. However the metric has hardly any traction outside of very specialized areas such as development of computer drivers. Our KB to MB converter supports operations in both standards.

Each definition has its pluses - the SI one is easier to compute and is in line with other measurement units such as kilometer, kilogram, etc. The binary one is more appropriate for computer storage and memory since it results in round numbers, e.g. there is no 512 MB (SI) RAM, but there is 512 MB (binary, or MiB) RAM.

    Difference between KB and MB

Converting from KB to MB is needed in different situations. Say you have a system containing many files, each around 512 KB, and you want to know how many MB you will need to fit 100,000 of those files. In this case you will need exactly 50,000 MB of storage if using the binary system, and 51,200 MB of storage if using the SI system.

Please, note that many storage systems will be labeled based on the SI convention for the megabyte. For example a 700 MB CD will in fact contain just 700,000,000 Bytes or 700,000 SI kilobytes. However, those are equal to only 667.572 MB (683,593.75 KB) in the binary convention which your OS is likely using to display file sizes. So, before purchasing any kind of data storage, make sure you understand the different metric systems used so you don't end up short - the difference is a whopping 10% when we go into the gigabyte range.

    How to convert KiloBytes to MegaBytes?

To convert between KB and MB you need to divide by 1000 if using the SI convention and by 1024 if using the binary convention. Here you can see the utility of the SI convention in that you can just shift the decimal place 3 positions to the left, but due to calculators like ours, it is rarely a significant advantage.

GB to MB conversion example

Sample task: convert 2048 kilobytes to megabytes (binary, also KiB to MiB). Solution:

Formula:
KB / 1024 = MB
Calculation:
2048 KB / 1,024 = 2 MB
End result:
2048 KB is equal to 2 MB

Sample task: convert 2000 kilobytes to megabytes (SI). Solution:

Formula:
KB / 1000 = MB
Calculation:
2000 KB / 1,000 = 2 MB
End result:
2000 KB is equal to 2 MB

    KB to MB conversion table