Want to find out how many gigabytes of information you’ve downloaded and uploaded since your last boot? Windows can tell you.

Windows keeps track of the amount of data moving through the computer’s network interfaces – in other words, how much you’ve been downloading and uploading. Anyone who wants to know more about the data flow during a regular session or during the course of a day may want to take a look at the statistics.

To do this, head to the search bar and call up the command prompt by typing in “cmd”. In the new window, enter
“netstat -e” (without the quotation marks). This will give you the number of bytes received and sent. In general, the figures are likely to be in the seven-digit (or single-digit megabyte) to 10-digit (single-digit gigabyte) range. If you’re struggling with the conversion, try an online search for “byte into megabyte conversion” to get help from a conversion tool.

Keep in mind, however, that Windows will only monitor the data flow until the computer is rebooted. This will prompt the operating system to reset the counter.