KB, MB, and GB Explained: How Large Are Photos and Videos? Quick Reference Table
"How many MB is this photo?" "I tried to send a video and it said GB — is that huge?" KB, MB, and GB show up constantly when you use a phone or computer, yet many people have only a vague sense of what they actually mean. This article puts the units in plain terms — with concrete figures for how large photos and videos really are.
Understanding How KB, MB, and GB Relate
All three units measure the same thing: how much data something contains. The key rule of thumb is that each one is about 1,000 times larger than the one to its left.
- KB (kilobyte)… the smallest unit. A short text or an icon
- MB (megabyte)… about 1,000× a KB — roughly one photo or one song
- GB (gigabyte)… about 1,000× an MB — videos, apps, phone storage
In other words, from smallest to largest: KB < MB < GB. For example, 1 GB is twice the size of 500 MB. (Technically, computers use multiples of 1,024, but for everyday purposes rounding to 1,000 is perfectly accurate enough.)
Photo, Video, and Document Sizes at a Glance
If the raw numbers don't quite click, here's a table of approximate sizes for familiar types of data. These are rough figures — actual sizes vary with quality settings and length.
| Type of data | Approximate size |
|---|---|
| One plain-text email | A few KB to tens of KB |
| One chat sticker | Tens of KB to hundreds of KB |
| One smartphone photo | About 2–5 MB |
| One song (4–5 minutes) | About 5–10 MB |
| PDF document (about 10 pages) | About 1–5 MB |
| 1 minute of smartphone video (Full HD) | Around 100 MB |
| 1 minute of 4K video | about 300–400 MB |
| One feature film (2 hours, high quality) | About 4–8 GB |
Looking at these together, photos sit comfortably in the MB range, while video jumps straight to hundreds of MB or even GB. That's exactly why video is so awkward to send.
How Much Can You Send by Email?
Most email services cap attachments ataround 20–25 MB. Cross-referencing the table: a few photos are no problem, but even a single minute of video can already exceed the limit. "Can't email a video" simply means the file is way over what email allows. In those cases, skip the attachment and useHow to Send Large Files for Free instead.
How to Think About Free Space on Your Phone or Computer
Phone storage is advertised in GB — "64 GB", "128 GB", and so on. Using the figures above, 128 GB of free space holds over 20 hours of Full HD video or tens of thousands of photos. When you're running low, tackling your largest video files first is the most efficient way to free up room.
Know Your File Sizes and Share Without Hassle
Once you have a feel for the units, you can pick the right method before you even hit send: "this video is too big for email — I'll share a link" or "photos are fine as attachments". For files too large for email or chat, a service like FS!QR lets you hand them over via QR code or link with no app and no sign-up required. Use it whenever you want to share files without worrying about size limits.
Common Data Sizes at a Glance
A typical webpage takes about 1 MB, a song is around 5 MB, and streaming video uses roughly 1 GB per hour. When phone storage is tight, deleting videos first is always the quickest win.
The 1,000 vs. 1,024 Trap: Why Your Storage Seems Smaller Than Advertised
Have you ever bought a "128 GB" phone or PC only to find that the usable capacity shown by the device is noticeably smaller? There's a historical reason for this discrepancy in how data is calculated.
In the standard decimal (base-10) system, 1 KB = 1,000 bytes and 1 MB = 1,000 KB. But computers run on binary (base-2), so internally they treat 1 KB as 2¹⁰ = 1,024 bytes, and 1 MB as 1,024 KB.
Smartphone and hard drive manufacturers advertise capacity using the decimal definition (1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes), while operating systems like Windows display capacity using the binary definition (1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes). This discrepancy makes the physical storage appear about 7.4% smaller on your computer. It is not a defect — your device is perfectly fine.