A byte is a unit of measurement for digital information, like how inches measure length or pounds measure weight. One byte represents a tiny amount of data: enough to store a single letter, number, or punctuation mark on a computer.

When you type the letter “A” on a keyboard, your computer stores it as one byte. The word “hello” takes up five bytes, one for each letter. Everything on a computer, from documents to photos to videos, is measured in bytes or larger units built from them.

Since individual bytes are so small, we usually talk about larger amounts. A kilobyte equals about 1,000 bytes (enough for a few paragraphs of text). A megabyte equals about 1,000,000 bytes (enough for a short book or a minute of music). A gigabyte equals about 1,000,000,000 bytes (enough for hundreds of songs or a full-length movie). Your phone or computer likely stores hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes (trillions of bytes).

Eight bits equal one byte. Understanding bytes helps you make sense of file sizes, storage capacity, and how much space your photos, games, and homework actually take up on your devices.