Minutes to Milliseconds Converter

What this converter does

This takes minutes and gives you milliseconds, a jump from a clock unit right down into the fine units that software counts in. Since a millisecond is a thousandth of a second, a single minute turns into tens of thousands of them. Enter the minutes and the milliseconds come straight back.

How to use it

1. Enter Minutes. Type the number of minutes.

Press Calculate and the equivalent in milliseconds appears.

Sixty, then a thousand

This conversion crosses two different number bases, so it helps to see it in two moves. First, minutes to seconds is a multiply by 60, the clock's base. Then seconds to milliseconds is a multiply by 1,000, the metric step. Put together, that is 60 times 1,000, which is 60,000. So to convert minutes to milliseconds you multiply by 60,000, making one minute exactly 60,000 milliseconds. It is the bridge from the world of sixties into the world of thousands, and the result is exact.

Why milliseconds

Milliseconds are the unit a great deal of software works in. Delays, timers, and scheduled pauses are frequently set in milliseconds, and many functions that wait or measure expect that unit. So when you have a duration in minutes and need to express it for something like that, this conversion takes it all the way down in one step. A two minute wait becomes the 120,000 the code is asking for.

An example

Take 1 minute. Multiply by 60,000 and you have 60,000 milliseconds. Two minutes is 120,000, and half a minute is 30,000 milliseconds. The large figures are simply the cost of expressing a clock-sized span in thousandths of a second.

Questions people ask

How many milliseconds are in a minute?

60,000. A minute is 60 seconds, and each second is 1,000 milliseconds, so 60 times 1,000 is 60,000. To convert, multiply by 60,000.

Why are the numbers so large?

Because a millisecond is far smaller than a minute, a thousandth of a second, so it takes 60,000 of them to make one minute.

What is 2 minutes in milliseconds?

120,000 milliseconds, since two lots of 60,000 is 120,000.

How do I go back to minutes?

Divide the milliseconds by 60,000.