Sample files by size
Pick an exact size to see every format available at it, and which server and platform limits that size is useful for testing.
All sizes
| Size | Exact bytes | Formats | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 KB sample files | 1,024 | 27 | About 170 English words, or a short paragraph of plain text. |
| 5 KB sample files | 5,120 | 9 | About two pages of plain text, or a small icon. |
| 10 KB sample files | 10,240 | 34 | Three to four pages of plain text, or a small thumbnail image. |
| 25 KB sample files | 25,600 | 9 | About eight pages of plain text, or a compact logo. |
| 50 KB sample files | 51,200 | 11 | A one-page Word document, or a well-compressed web photo. |
| 100 KB sample files | 102,400 | 39 | A short PDF report, or a medium-quality photo at screen size. |
| 500 KB sample files | 512,000 | 17 | A photo from a messaging app, or a PDF of a few dozen pages. |
| 1 MB sample files | 1,048,576 | 39 | About a minute of MP3 audio, or a high-quality photo. |
| 5 MB sample files | 5,242,880 | 24 | A photo straight from a phone camera, or about five minutes of MP3 audio. |
| 10 MB sample files | 10,485,760 | 20 | About a minute of CD-quality WAV audio, or a 50-page scanned PDF. |
How sizes are counted
File sizes on this site use binary multiples, the convention followed by operating systems and by nearly all server configuration. One kilobyte is 1,024 bytes and one megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes. Strictly these are kibibytes (KiB) and mebibytes (MiB), but the short forms KB and MB are what limits such as client_max_body_size 1m actually mean.
If a limit you are testing is defined in decimal units, where one megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes, our files are about 5 percent larger than the decimal figure of the same name. The exact byte count is printed on every download page, and the guide to creating test files shows how to make a file of any other size.
Choosing a size
- For automated tests, use the smallest file that proves the behaviour: 1 KB or 10 KB.
- For an upload limit, take the sizes on either side of it. The most common default limit on the web is 1 MB.
- For realistic user uploads, a phone photo is about 5 MB.
- For timeouts, progress bars and retries, use 10 MB on a throttled connection.
The guide to testing file size limits lists the default limits of common servers and frameworks.