Kilobytes to Megabytes Converter Tool

Binary, not decimal, megabytes

This calculator divides by 1024, not 1000 — it treats "kilobyte" and "megabyte" using the binary convention (1 MB = 1024 KB = 2²⁰ bytes) that Windows File Explorer and most OS-level file size displays still use. Storage manufacturers and some newer software instead use the SI decimal convention (1 MB = 1000 KB), which produces a slightly smaller MB figure for the same byte count. If your source used decimal KB, divide by 1000 instead for a matching result.

Worked example

2048 KB ÷ 1024 = 2 MB exactly — a clean case because 2048 is a power of 2. A less clean case: 1500 KB ÷ 1024 = 1.46484375 MB.

Why 1024 and not 1000

Computers address memory in binary, and 1024 (2¹⁰) is the binary value closest to 1000, which is why early computing adopted it as a shorthand "kilo." The formal binary unit for this is the kibibyte (KiB) rather than kilobyte (KB), but in practice most file managers and OS dialogs still label 1024-byte units as "KB."