Bits to Bytes Converter

Common questions

How many bits are in a byte?

A byte is eight bits, so bytes = bits / 8 and bits = bytes × 8. Thus 8 bits is 1 byte, 16 bits is 2 bytes, 64 bits is 8 bytes and 8,192 bits is 1,024 bytes. The factor is exactly one eighth. These examples are exact; the display still rounds to twelve significant digits when an input has more digits.

What is the formula for bits to bytes?

bytes = bits / 8. Type the bit count into the From box, with or without thousands separators, and the byte figure updates as you type: 1,000 bits is 125 bytes, 5,000,000 bits is 625,000 bytes and 1,000,000,000 bits is 125,000,000 bytes. Exponent notation is accepted as well, so 5e6 is read as 5,000,000. In the other direction bits = bytes x 8, and the swap button between the two boxes sets that direction up without a reload.

How do I convert megabits to megabytes, for a 100 Mbps connection?

A stated decimal rate of 100 megabits per second is 100,000,000 bits per second, or exactly 12.5 megabytes per second before protocol overhead. To use this storage-unit converter, enter 100,000,000 bits as the quantity transferred in one second: it displays 12,500,000 bytes, 12,500 kB, 12.5 MB and 11.9209289551 MiB. The corresponding rates have those numbers per second. The menus do not contain Mbps or MB/s, and conversion does not predict an actual transfer speed or download time.

Why does 1 bit come back as 0.125 bytes?

A bit is one eighth of a byte: 1 bit = 0.125 bytes, 2 bits = 0.25 bytes and a four-bit nibble = 0.5 bytes. These are equivalent quantities, not predictions of file or memory allocation. Multiple four-bit values can be packed into bytes, and actual allocated storage depends on the format, padding and filesystem. The converter reports the unit arithmetic.

Is a kilobyte on this page 1,000 bytes or 1,024?

A kilobyte (kB) is 1,000 bytes and a kibibyte (KiB) is 1,024 bytes; both have separate labeled rows. For the same quantity, 8,192 bits is 1,024 bytes, 1.024 kB or exactly 1 KiB. Likewise 8,000,000 bits is 1 MB or 0.953674316406 MiB, and 8,000,000,000 bits is 1 GB or 0.931322574615 GiB. These are the same byte quantities expressed in different units. Software labels may use a different convention; no switch is needed to see both rows here.

Why is a small answer written as 1.25e-7?

Because anything below one millionth is printed in exponential form instead of a row of leading zeroes. One bit is 0.000125 kB, which prints as a decimal, but 1.25e-7 MB and 1.25e-10 GB, which do not. Results are shown to 12 significant digits, so 100,000,000 bits reads 11.9209289551 MiB. If a tiny figure is not useful, pick a smaller unit in the To menu: bytes and kilobytes stay readable at these sizes.

Can I convert bytes back to bits here?

Yes. Press the swap button between the two boxes and the page becomes bytes to bits: 1 byte gives 8 bits, 1,024 bytes gives 8,192 bits and 1,000,000 bytes gives 8,000,000 bits. Both unit menus stay open either way, so the same figure goes to kB, MB, GB, TB or the binary KiB, MiB, GiB and TiB without leaving the page, and each row under the answer has its own Copy button.

Why does the page open on bits and bytes when I last converted something else?

This focused page opens on Bit and Byte, while preserving the main converter’s saved unit pair. When browser storage is usable, a saved value and uncommon-unit preference can travel between pages. The value’s suffix must still match the current From unit. Valid deliberate scalar edits can save those fields after a short delay; invalid or incomplete drafts do not overwrite the saved record. Unusable or conflicting records are kept with an explanation until you use Forget saved settings, which keeps the current conversion on screen.

Is anything I type sent anywhere?

Your input and converted values are calculated in the browser and are not uploaded by the converter. The definitions arrive with the page, so conversion needs no external data lookup and keeps working offline after the page has loaded. The core conversion needs no account.