Timestamp Converter

How to Use This Timestamp Converter

1. View the current timestamp: The live display at the top shows the current Unix timestamp updating in real-time, along with the corresponding human-readable date and time in your local timezone.
2. Convert timestamp to date: Enter a Unix timestamp in the "Timestamp to Date" section. The tool automatically detects whether your input is in seconds (10 digits) or milliseconds (13 digits) and converts accordingly.
3. Use current time: Click "Use Current Time" to populate the input field with the current Unix timestamp, then see all the conversion results immediately.
4. View multiple formats: After conversion, results appear in multiple formats including local time, UTC, ISO 8601, date only, time only, day of week, relative time (e.g., "5 days ago"), and milliseconds.
5. Convert date to timestamp: Use the date picker in the "Date to Timestamp" section to select any date and time, then click "Convert to Timestamp" to get the corresponding Unix timestamp in both seconds and milliseconds.
6. Copy any result: Click on any result card to copy that value to your clipboard. This makes it easy to use the converted values in your code, documentation, or other tools.

What is a Unix Timestamp?

A Unix timestamp, also known as Epoch time, POSIX time, or Unix Epoch time, is a system for tracking time as a running total of seconds. It counts the number of seconds that have elapsed since the Unix Epoch, which is defined as January 1, 1970, at 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), not counting leap seconds.

The Unix timestamp was chosen by early Unix engineers as a simple, efficient way to represent time in computer systems. By using a single integer to represent any moment in time, it eliminates the complexity of dealing with time zones, daylight saving time, calendar variations, and date formatting issues during calculations and storage.

Unix timestamps are timezone-agnostic by design. The same timestamp value represents the same instant in time regardless of where in the world it is read. This makes timestamps ideal for storing event times in databases, logging systems, and APIs where data may be accessed from different geographic locations.

Timestamp Precision

Seconds (10 digits): Traditional Unix timestamps are measured in seconds. A typical current timestamp like 1704067200 represents a specific second. This precision is sufficient for most applications including event logging, scheduling, and general timekeeping.

Milliseconds (13 digits): Many modern systems use millisecond timestamps for higher precision. JavaScript's Date.now() returns milliseconds, as do many APIs. A millisecond timestamp like 1704067200000 allows distinguishing between events occurring within the same second.

Microseconds and nanoseconds: Some high-precision systems use even finer granularity. Database systems like PostgreSQL support microsecond precision, while performance monitoring tools may use nanoseconds.

Common Timestamp Formulas

Get current timestamp (JavaScript): Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) for seconds or Date.now() for milliseconds.

Convert to date (JavaScript): new Date(timestamp * 1000) where timestamp is in seconds. For millisecond timestamps, omit the multiplication.

Convert date to timestamp (JavaScript): Math.floor(new Date("2024-01-01").getTime() / 1000)

Python current timestamp: import time; int(time.time())

Python convert to date: from datetime import datetime; datetime.fromtimestamp(1704067200)

Important Timestamps

0: January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC - The Unix Epoch, the starting point for Unix time.

1000000000: September 9, 2001, 01:46:40 UTC - The billennium, when the timestamp hit one billion.

2147483647: January 19, 2038, 03:14:07 UTC - The maximum value for a signed 32-bit integer, known as the Year 2038 problem.

Negative timestamps: Represent dates before the Unix Epoch. For example, -86400 represents December 31, 1969.

Use Cases for Unix Timestamps

Database storage: Storing dates as integers is efficient and makes date arithmetic straightforward. Calculating the difference between two times is simple subtraction.

API communication: Timestamps provide an unambiguous way to transmit time data between systems in different timezones without requiring timezone conversion logic.

Logging and debugging: Log files often use timestamps because they sort correctly and can be easily filtered to find events within specific time ranges.

Cache expiration: Setting cache lifetimes and checking expiration is simple with timestamps: compare the current timestamp to the stored expiration timestamp.