Timestamp Converter
Paste an epoch value and read it as a date, or pick a date and get the epoch. Seconds, milliseconds and microseconds are detected automatically.
| Unix seconds | — |
| Unix milliseconds | — |
| ISO 8601 (UTC) | — |
Timestamp to date
| Local time | — |
| UTC | — |
| ISO 8601 | — |
| Relative | — |
| Day of week | — |
Date to timestamp
| Unix seconds | — |
| Unix milliseconds | — |
| ISO 8601 (UTC) | — |
How to use the Timestamp Converter
- To read a timestamp: paste it into the first box and press Convert to date. The unit is detected from the number of digits.
- To create one: pick a date, choose whether it is local time or UTC, then press Convert to timestamp.
- The panel at the top shows the current time and can be copied with one click.
What a Unix timestamp is
A Unix timestamp counts the seconds since midnight UTC on 1 January 1970 — the Unix epoch. It has no time zone, no daylight saving and no ambiguity, which is why almost every system stores time this way and converts to local time only for display.
The count deliberately ignores leap seconds. A day is always exactly 86,400 seconds, so on the rare days that carry a leap second, Unix time repeats or skips a value rather than counting it. For everything short of scientific timekeeping, this is what you want.
Seconds, milliseconds or microseconds?
Getting the unit wrong is the most common timestamp bug — a value in milliseconds read as seconds lands in the year 56,000. Digit count is a reliable guide for any date in living memory:
| Digits | Unit | Example | Used by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Seconds | 1735689600 | Unix, PHP, Python, most APIs |
| 13 | Milliseconds | 1735689600000 | JavaScript, Java |
| 16 | Microseconds | 1735689600000000 | Postgres internals, some tracing systems |
A quick sanity check: a ten-digit timestamp starting with 17 is somewhere in the mid-2020s.
The 2038 problem
Systems that store Unix time in a signed 32-bit integer overflow at 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038, wrapping to 1901. Modern platforms use 64-bit values and are unaffected, but embedded devices, old database columns and legacy file formats still carry the limit. If you work with dates beyond 2038 — mortgage terms, pension records, expiry dates — it is worth checking what your storage layer actually uses.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the local time differ from what I expected?
Local conversion uses your device's time zone and its daylight-saving rules for that specific date. A timestamp from July shows a different offset than one from January in most of Europe and North America.
Can a timestamp be negative?
Yes. Negative values are dates before 1970 and are handled correctly here. Some older systems and databases reject them, which is worth knowing before storing historical dates.
What is ISO 8601?
A standard textual format like 2025-01-01T00:00:00.000Z. The trailing Z means UTC. Unlike a bare timestamp, it is human-readable while staying unambiguous, which makes it a good choice for logs and APIs.
Does this account for leap seconds?
No, and neither does Unix time itself. Every day counts as exactly 86,400 seconds by definition.
Why is the current time slightly off?
The clock reads your device. If it drifts, everything derived from it drifts too. Enabling automatic network time in your system settings fixes it.
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