Minutes to Seconds Converter

What this converter does

This turns a number of minutes into seconds. It is the most direct of the minute conversions, taking a duration in minutes and giving you the equivalent count of seconds. Enter the minutes and the seconds come straight back, decimals handled if you enter a part-minute.

How to use it

1. Enter Minutes. Type the number of minutes.

Press Calculate and the equivalent in seconds appears.

How the conversion works

There are 60 seconds in a minute, so to convert minutes to seconds you multiply by 60. So 5 minutes is 300 seconds, 1 minute is 60, and half a minute is 30 seconds. The number grows because a second is the smaller unit, and the relationship is exact, sitting on the base of 60 that the clock uses.

Why you would want seconds

Seconds are the working unit in a lot of places that a minute figure has to fit into. Code and timers often expect a duration in seconds, calculations are easier when everything is in one base unit, and many systems record and compare time in seconds. So if you have a span in minutes and need to hand it to something like that, this gets it into the unit being asked for. Five minutes becomes the 300 a timer wants.

An example

Take 5 minutes. Multiply by 60 and you have 300 seconds. A duration of 2.5 minutes is 150 seconds, and 10 minutes is 600. The conversion is a single multiply, but it is the step that turns a minute figure into the seconds a calculation or timer runs on.

Questions people ask

How many seconds are in a minute?

60. So to convert minutes to seconds you multiply by 60. Five minutes is 300 seconds.

Why does the number get bigger?

Because a second is smaller than a minute, so it takes more of them to fill the same span. Smaller unit, larger count.

What is 2.5 minutes in seconds?

150 seconds, since two and a half lots of 60 is 150.

How do I go from seconds back to minutes?

Divide the seconds by 60, or use a seconds-to-minutes converter.