In this article, a time discretization decoupled scheme for two‐dimensional magnetohydrodynamics equations is proposed. The almost unconditional
(
Δ
t
≤
C
)
H
2
stability and convergence of this scheme are provided. The optimal
L
2
−
H
1
error estimates for velocity and magnet are provided, and the optimal
L
2
error estimate for pressure are deduced as well. Finite element spatial discretization and numerical implementation are considered in our article (Zhang and He, Comput Math Appl 69 (2015), 1390–1406). © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 956–973, 2017