How to convert minutes to seconds
One minute contains 60 seconds, so to convert minutes to seconds you multiply by 60. For example, 5 minutes × 60 = 300 seconds. A quarter minute is 15 seconds, and 2.5 minutes is 150 seconds.
The 60-second minute comes from Babylonian base-60 counting, which is also why an hour has 60 minutes and a circle 360 degrees. Because 60 divides cleanly by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30, most common fractions of a minute land on whole seconds: a third of a minute is 20 seconds and a fifth is 12 seconds.
Switching direction is just as common, which is what the seconds to minutes calculator is for.
How to use this calculator
Enter a number of minutes (whole or decimal) and the seconds appear instantly. To work in larger units, try the hours to minutes calculator, or reverse it with the seconds to hours calculator.
Worked example: a 90-minute football match is 90 x 60 = 5,400 seconds, and a 3-minute song is 180 seconds. Video editors, runners and cooks all need this direction because timelines, splits and countdowns are usually expressed in seconds while schedules are written in minutes.
Quick reference
1 minute = 60 seconds, 2 minutes = 120 seconds, 10 minutes = 600 seconds, and 60 minutes = 3,600 seconds. Decimal minutes also work: 0.5 minutes = 30 seconds.
Scaling up: an hour is 3,600 seconds, a day is 86,400 seconds and a week is 604,800 seconds. Scaling down, 0.1 minutes is 6 seconds, which is why some billing and telemetry systems record time in tenths of a minute rather than in seconds.
Frequently asked questions
- How many seconds are in 5 minutes?
- There are 300 seconds in 5 minutes, because 5 × 60 = 300.
- How do I convert minutes to seconds?
- Multiply the number of minutes by 60. Each minute contains exactly 60 seconds.
- How many seconds is half a minute?
- Half a minute is 30 seconds, since 0.5 × 60 = 30.
- How many seconds are in an hour?
- An hour has 3,600 seconds, because 60 minutes × 60 = 3,600.
- How do I convert a time like 2:45 into seconds?
- Multiply the whole minutes by 60 and add the leftover seconds: 2 x 60 = 120, plus 45, gives 165 seconds. Do not type 2.45 into the box - that is 2.45 decimal minutes, or 147 seconds, which is a different figure entirely.