Basic PHP Function to Get File Sizes in KB, MB & GB

June 3, 2008 • 1 min read

php

Here’s the follow-up article on how to easily get file sizes nicely formatted. Below is a quick function that will display the file size in KB, MB, or GB all easily accessed through a function.

function formatbytes($file, $type)
{
   switch($type) {
      case "KB":
         $filesize = filesize($file) * .0009765625; // bytes to KB
      break;
      case "MB":
         $filesize = (filesize($file) * .0009765625) * .0009765625; // bytes to MB
      break;
      case "GB":
         $filesize = ((filesize($file) * .0009765625) * .0009765625) * .0009765625; // bytes to GB
      break;
   }
   if($filesize <= 0){
      return $filesize = 'unknown file size';}
   else{return round($filesize, 2).' '.$type;}
}

Usage

// display the file size in MB
echo formatbytes("$_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]/images/large_picture.jpg", "MB");

Just remember the file location has to be the absolute location on the server – it can not be relative