Binary to Hex Converter

One byte of binary is eight digits — a kilobyte of it is over eight thousand 0s and 1s that nobody can skim. Hexadecimal is the compact shorthand: because 16 = 2⁴, one hex digit always stands for exactly four binary digits, so every byte is exactly two hex digits. And hex changes nothing about the data — 01001000, 72 and 0x48 are the same byte spelled three ways. Hex is notation, not an encoding: encodings like ASCII and UTF-8 decide what bytes mean; hex only decides how they are written down.

The nibble trick: read hex straight off the bits

A 4-bit group is called a nibble — half a byte. To convert any binary string to hex, group it into nibbles and read each one off this table, no decimal detour needed:

Worked example: 01001000 splits into 0100 and 1000 → 4 and 8 → 0x48. Decoded as text on the binary to text page, that byte is the letter H.

Where programmers see hex every day

• Color codes — #RRGGBB is three hex bytes. This site’s own brand blue, #0F70E6, is red 0x0F (15), green 0x70 (112) and blue 0xE6 (230).
• Memory addresses and error codes — debuggers print addresses in hex, and the classic joke value 0xDEADBEEF marks freed memory on some systems precisely because it reads as English.
• Unicode code points — written U+1F44B-style: the waving hand 👋 is code point U+1F44B, while its UTF-8 bytes are F0 9F 91 8B. Same character, two hex spellings — one names the character, the other stores it.

Every byte value: 0–255 in decimal, binary and hex

The complete reference. Two hex digits per byte, always — from 0x00 to 0xFF.

Common mistakes

• Mistake: grouping by 8 instead of 4. Hex digits line up with nibbles, not bytes — treating 11110110 as one chunk forces a decimal detour. Correction: split into 1111 and 0110 first, then read F and 6 → 0xF6.
• Mistake: worrying about letter case in hex. 0xF6 and 0xf6 are the same value. Correction: case is convention, not content — this site prints uppercase, C code often uses lowercase.
• Mistake: treating the 0x prefix as part of the value. Correction: 0x is a C-style marker meaning “hex follows”; it carries no value, just like the 0b prefix on binary.

Practice

1. Convert 11110110 to hex without touching decimal. Split into nibbles 1111 and 0110 → F and 6 → 0xF6.

2. What is the byte 0x48 in binary — and as a letter? 4 = 0100 and 8 = 1000, so 01001000; decoded as ASCII text that is H. Verify both in the converter above.