Kilobytes to Gigabytes (kB to GB)
1 kilobyte equals 0.000001 gigabytes exactly.
How to convert kilobytes to gigabytes
To convert kilobytes to gigabytes, multiply the number of kilobytes by 0.000001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply gigabytes by 1,000,000.
gigabytes = kilobytes × 0.000001
Example: 10 kilobytes = 0.00001 gigabytes.
Decimal prefixes (kB, MB, GB) are powers of 1,000; binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) are powers of 1,024. Storage makers use decimal; Windows reports binary but labels it GB.
About these units
Kilobyte (kB)
1,000 bytes in the SI (decimal) definition. Older software and Windows sometimes use KB to mean 1,024 bytes; see kibibyte.
Few units have had two meanings for so long. By the mid-1960s most computers used binary addressing, so memory sizes came in powers of two and engineers borrowed kilo to mean 1,024. IBM documentation for the System/360 in 1964 used an uppercase K for 1,024. Hard disk makers took a different path from the start. The IEC later settled the question: kilobyte, symbol kB, means 1,000 bytes, and 1,024 bytes is a kibibyte.
Floppy disks show the muddle. The Shugart SA-400 of 1976 held 109,375 bytes unformatted and was advertised as 110 Kbyte, the decimal way, while a 1978 Tandon double-density disk held 368,640 bytes, or 360 times 1,024, and was sold as 360 KB. Windows still divides by 1,024, so a 65,536-byte file appears as 64 KB there, while Mac OS X Snow Leopard and later would call it 66 kB. A kilobyte is also tiny: Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is 12,843 bytes.
1 kilobyte = 1,000 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Kilobyte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Gigabyte (GB)
1,000,000,000 bytes (decimal). Storage manufacturers and phone makers use this definition.
The gigabyte is where the decimal-versus-binary dispute turned into lawsuits. Drive makers advertise capacity in decimal units, so a 500 GB drive holds 500 billion bytes, but Windows reports sizes in binary units and shows about 465.7 of what it labels GB for the same drive. Early challenges against Western Digital and Seagate were settled, with Western Digital adding disclaimers that usable capacity may differ from the advertised figure.
A 2019 lawsuit was decided in the manufacturers' favor, with the court relying on the decimal definition. For scale, one gigabyte holds roughly an hour of standard-definition video at 2.2 Mbit/s. A single-layer DVD+R holds about 4.7 GB and a single-layer Blu-ray about 25 GB. RAM is still often sized in binary gigabytes, which the IEC would call gibibytes.
1 gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Gigabyte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; Wikipedia: Gibibyte
Related conversions
- Gigabytes to kilobytes (reverse)
- Kilobytes to bytes
- Kilobytes to megabytes
- Kilobytes to terabytes
- Kilobytes to bits
- Kilobytes to petabytes
- Kilobytes to kibibytes
- Kilobytes to mebibytes
- Kilobytes to gibibytes
- Kilobytes to tebibytes
- Kilobytes to kilobits
- Kilobytes to megabits
- Kilobytes to gigabits
- Bytes to gigabytes
- Megabytes to gigabytes
- Terabytes to gigabytes
- Bits to gigabytes
- Petabytes to gigabytes
- Kibibytes to gigabytes
- Mebibytes to gigabytes
- Gibibytes to gigabytes
- Tebibytes to gigabytes
- Kilobits to gigabytes
- Megabits to gigabytes
- Gigabits to gigabytes
See all digital storage units.