Convert Gigabyte to Kilobyte (GB → KB)

Converting gigabytes to kilobytes is straightforward: multiply by the conversion factor. Follow these three steps to do it by hand or in your head.

1. 1
   Take your value in gigabytes

   Start with the number of gigabytes (GB) you want to convert.
2. 2
   Multiply by 1,000,000

   The conversion factor from GB to KB is 1,000,000. Multiply your value by this number.
3. 3
   Read the result in kilobytes

   The result is your value in kilobytes (KB).

Multiply the value in gigabytes by 1,000,000. For the reverse direction, multiply by 0.000001.

• ✓SI: 1 GB = 1000 MB = 10⁹ B. Binary GiB = 2³⁰ B.
• ✓Hard drives use SI; OS may show binary — discrepancy ~7%.
• ✓Mobile data plans: SI GB.

• ✗Expecting 64 GB drive to hold 64 × 1,073,741,824 B — it's 64 × 10⁹ B (7% less by binary measure).
• ✗Confusing GB with Gb (gigabit, 1/8).
• ✗Mixing GB and GiB without noting the discrepancy.

What is the Gigabyte?

The gigabyte (GB) equals 1,000 megabytes (1,000,000,000 bytes decimal, or 1,073,741,824 bytes as GiB binary) and is the standard unit for smartphone storage, mobile data plans, and modern application sizes. Modern smartphones offer 64–1,024 GB of storage, mobile data plans range from 1 to 50+ GB per month, and operating-system installations typically require 20–80 GB. A 4K video stream consumes 6–8 GB per hour, and a typical app download is 50–500 MB to a few GB. The famous discrepancy between manufacturer-advertised capacity (GB decimal) and operating-system-displayed capacity (GiB binary) means a '1 TB' drive shows about 931 GB to the user. The gigabyte relates to the megabyte (1,000 MB = 1 GB), the terabyte (1,000 GB = 1 TB), the gibibyte (1 GiB = 1.074 GB), and the gigabit (1 GB = 8 Gbit).

• Phone and device storage
• Mobile-data plan allowances
• Memory (RAM) sizes

What is the Kilobyte?

The kilobyte (KB) equals 1,000 bytes (decimal) or sometimes 1,024 bytes (binary, properly KiB). In modern strict usage, KB = 10³ bytes and KiB = 2¹⁰ bytes, but historical software and operating systems often interchanged them. The kilobyte was the standard file-size unit in early computing: a typical floppy disk held 360–1,440 KB, early word-processor documents were a few KB. Today, the kilobyte is rarely the primary user-facing unit (megabytes and gigabytes dominate), but it remains relevant for small files, source-code text, and embedded systems memory. The original Apple Macintosh (1984) shipped with 128 KB of RAM; the original IBM PC had 16–640 KB. The kilobyte relates to the byte (1,000 bytes = 1 KB decimal, 1,024 bytes = 1 KiB binary), the megabyte (1,000 KB = 1 MB), and the kilobit (1 KB = 8 kbit).

• Small file sizes (icons, short documents)
• Network packet sizes
• Early-computing memory specifications