How to convert a Unix timestamp
- Paste a timestamp into Timestamp to date. Seconds, milliseconds and microseconds are detected from the number of digits.
- If the guess is wrong, choose the unit manually from the Unit menu.
- Read the result as UTC (ISO 8601), in your local time zone, in RFC 2822 format, or as relative time such as "3 days ago".
- To go the other way, pick a date and time under Date to timestamp and choose whether it is UTC or your local time.
- Press Copy next to any value to copy it.
What Unix time is
Unix time, also called epoch time or POSIX time, is the number of seconds that have passed since the Unix epoch: 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. Because it is a single number with no time zone, it is easy to store, compare and sort, which is why it is used in databases, log files, JWT claims such as exp and iat, and HTTP APIs. Dates before 1970 are negative numbers.
Different platforms use different precisions. Unix tools and most APIs use seconds, JavaScript's Date.now() and Java's System.currentTimeMillis() return milliseconds, and some databases and tracing systems store microseconds or nanoseconds.
Reference values
| Timestamp (seconds) | Date (UTC) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1970-01-01 00:00:00 | The Unix epoch |
| 1000000000 | 2001-09-09 01:46:40 | First 10-digit timestamp |
| 2147483647 | 2038-01-19 03:14:07 | Maximum signed 32-bit value (Year 2038 problem) |
| 9999999999 | 2286-11-20 17:46:39 | Last 10-digit timestamp |
Tip: when storing times, keep them in UTC (as a timestamp or an ISO 8601 string with a Z or offset) and convert to local time only for display. Storing local times without an offset makes daylight saving transitions ambiguous.