Megabytes to Gigabytes (MB to GB)
1,000 MB is 1 GB in decimal units, and 1,024 MB is 1 GB in the binary units Windows uses. The result shows both answers, with terabytes and kilobytes beside them.
1 MB =
0.001 GB
- Exact
- 0.001 GB
- Binary count (Windows)
- 0.0009766 GB
- kilobytes
- 1,000 kB
gigabytes = megabytes ÷ 1,000
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How to convert MB to GB
Divide the megabytes by 1,000:
GB = MB ÷ 1,000
500 MB ÷ 1,000 = 0.5 GB. That is the decimal (SI) definition — giga- is 1,000 times mega- — used by drive makers, mobile carriers and macOS. Windows File Explorer and RAM sizes count in powers of 1,024 instead, so the result also shows the binary answer: 500 ÷ 1,024 = 0.488 GB. To go the other way, multiply gigabytes by 1,000 (or by 1,024 for binary).
MB to GB chart
| Megabytes (MB) | Gigabytes (GB) |
|---|---|
| 1 MB | 0.001 GB |
| 10 MB | 0.01 GB |
| 50 MB | 0.05 GB |
| 100 MB | 0.1 GB |
| 250 MB | 0.25 GB |
| 500 MB | 0.5 GB |
| 750 MB | 0.75 GB |
| 1,000 MB | 1 GB |
| 1,024 MB | 1.024 GB |
| 1,500 MB | 1.5 GB |
| 2,000 MB | 2 GB |
| 4,096 MB | 4.096 GB |
| 5,000 MB | 5 GB |
| 10,000 MB | 10 GB |
1,000 or 1,024?
| Where you see it | 1 GB is |
|---|---|
| Hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks (box) | 1,000 MB |
| Mobile data plans | usually 1,000 MB |
| macOS Finder, iOS | 1,000 MB |
| Windows File Explorer | 1,024 MB |
| RAM (memory) | 1,024 MB |
International standards name the binary units mebibyte (MiB) and gibibyte (GiB), so strictly 1 GiB = 1,024 MiB and 1 GB = 1,000 MB. In practice both get written as “GB”, which is why converters disagree. The difference is 2.4% at this step: 1,000 MB is 0.977 binary GB.
Data plans, downloads and files
A 2 GB data plan is about 2,000 MB. Streaming standard-definition video uses roughly a few hundred megabytes an hour and HD several times that, so the plan’s gigabytes run out faster than a file-size list suggests. App and game downloads list megabytes: a 750 MB update is 0.75 GB. For smaller units, see KB to GB; for time on a download, convert the speed in megabits per second to megabytes by dividing by 8.
Download time and storage percentages
To estimate a download, convert the connection speed from megabits to megabytes per second by dividing by 8: a 50 Mbps line moves about 6.25 MB/s, so a 1,500 MB file takes 240 seconds, or 4 minutes. The hours to minutes and minutes to hours converters turn long downloads into readable times. To see how full a drive is, divide the used gigabytes by the total: 180 GB of 256 GB is 70% — the percentage calculator does the division and shows what is left.
Why your drive shows less
A 256 GB phone or a 1 TB drive is sold in decimal gigabytes. The operating system may divide by 1,024 instead and show 238 GB or 931 GB. No space is missing — the same bytes are being counted in larger binary units — although the system software itself also takes some of the space. For seconds and minutes on long downloads, see minutes to seconds.