MB to KB Converter

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

    How many KiloBytes equal one MegaByte?

1024 kilobytes equal one megabyte, but also 1000 kilobytes equal one megabyte. Yes, that is correct, unfortunately for anyone looking for an easy conversion between MB and KB there are two competing definitions for the megabyte. One is historically established and used by most people familiar with programming - it is based on binary logic, so every metric is a power of 2. Thus, a megabyte is 1024 KB since 1024 = 2¹⁰. It makes a lot of sense when dealing with computer memory operations and it is the unit you will see reported as the file or directory size in the Windows operating system.

The competing definition uses the decimal system where kilo and mega mean 1 thousand units of something and 1 million units of something, respectively. This is the convention adopted by the International System of Units (SI), IEC, and other major organizations, but despite that it is strangely adopted only by CD, DVD, HDD, and SSD manufacturer, probably because it makes their drives look larger than they actually are. In fact there was a lawsuit that Western Digital, a major manufacturer settled, which dealt with exactly this confusion/misinterpretation. Ever since, manufacturers mostly label their drives under the SI system, but add the equivalent in binary units: MiB and KiB - mebibytes and kibibytes.

If this is the first time you heard of them, don't worry, you are far from alone. Even experienced tech geeks are unaware of the existence of the SI system and are puzzled and confused about the reason they can only access a part of their hard disk or DVD, thinking it is due to some sort of system reserved space or other such nonsense. Just be sure to check the type of units used next time you buy a disk for your PC or Mac, or an external backup disk.

    Difference between MB and KB

The units measure the same thing: data. Usually data stored in a digital form on some sort of HDD, SSD, DVD, USB drive ("thumb drive"), etc. The difference is they measure different quantities of it - as explained a megabyte could be 1024 kilobytes or 1000 kilobytes depending on the convention being used.

A kilobyte is a modest amount of data, only 1024 Bytes (1000 under SI), and given that in ASCII each Byte represents one symbol / character, you can only write 1024 characters in a 1 KB file. Systems like Unicode (UTF-8, for example) require 2, 3, or more bytes per character, making it possible to only fit 2 or 3 times shorter text in a kilobyte. The text on this page is about 4.8 KB. Decades ago a kilobyte was a lot of information, but nowadays we rarely use it, as even the smallest files we store are at least several megabytes, making it more convenient to use that metric instead.

A megabyte can contain a fair amount of information. For example, many mp3 audio files are between 3 and 15 MB each. Short video clips are also within several dozens of MB, especially if compressed.

    How to convert MegaBytes to KiloBytes

Converting from MB to KB is easy to do: multiply by 1024 under the binary system; multiply by 1000 under the SI system, or move the decimal dot three positions to the right. Our converter makes the process even easier, but if you need a step by step instruction for the calculation, see below.

MB to KB conversion example

Sample task: convert 32 megabytes to kilobytes (binary, also MiB to KiB). Solution:

Formula:
MB * 1024 = KB
Calculation:
32 MB * 1,024 = 32,768 KB
End result:
32 MB is equal to 32,768 KB

Sample task: convert 32 megabytes to kilobytes (SI). Solution:

Formula:
MB * 1000 = KB
Calculation:
32 MB * 1,000 = 32,000 KB
End result:
32 MB is equal to 32,000 KB

    MB to KB conversion table