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Unix Timestamp Converter

Convert Unix timestamps in seconds, milliseconds, microseconds or nanoseconds to dates in any time zone, and dates back to timestamps.

Runs in your browser. Nothing you add is uploaded.

What the Unix Timestamp Converter does

A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 — the way most servers, databases and APIs store time, because it is a single number with no time zone attached. Not every system counts in seconds, though: JavaScript uses milliseconds, Python and PostgreSQL often microseconds, and Go and many logs nanoseconds. This converter recognises the unit from the number of digits, shows the moment in your time zone, UTC and any other, in ISO 8601, RFC 2822 and SQL formats, and converts dates typed in almost any format back into timestamps. A batch mode converts a whole list from a log file at once.

How to convert a Unix timestamp

  1. Paste a timestamp: 10 digits is read as seconds, 13 as milliseconds, 16 as microseconds and 19 as nanoseconds — or choose the unit yourself.
  2. Or type a date, such as 2026-09-29T14:30:00Z or 2026-09-29 20:00; dates without a zone are read in the time zone you choose.
  3. Read the result in your time, UTC and the chosen zone, and copy ISO 8601, RFC 2822, SQL or the timestamp in any unit.
  4. To convert many at once, open Convert many at once and paste one timestamp per line.

The Unix Timestamp Converter runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded, stored, or logged.

When to use it

Reading logs and API responses

Values like created_at: 1767225600 are meaningless at a glance. Converting them shows that this one is 1 January 2026 at 00:00 UTC — 5:30 in the morning in India — which is often the clue that explains an off-by-one-day bug.

Setting expiry times

Tokens, cookies and signed URLs expire at a timestamp. Picking a date and copying its timestamp is faster and less error-prone than adding 86,400 seconds per day by hand.

Checking a JWT's exp claim

The exp and iat fields in a JSON Web Token are Unix timestamps in seconds. Paste one here to see exactly when a token was issued and when it stops working.

Good to know

  • Mixing seconds and milliseconds is the most common timestamp bug: a seconds value read as milliseconds lands in January 1970, and the reverse lands tens of thousands of years in the future.
  • Store and transmit time as UTC timestamps, and convert to local time only when showing it to a person.
  • 32-bit signed timestamps run out on 19 January 2038. Use 64-bit integers for anything that must last beyond that date.
  • ISO 8601 strings such as 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z sort correctly as text and are easy to read in logs, which is why many APIs use them instead of raw numbers.

Frequently asked questions

What is Unix epoch time?

Unix epoch time is the total number of seconds elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.

Do Unix timestamps depend on the time zone?

No. A timestamp counts seconds from a fixed moment in UTC, so the same instant has the same timestamp everywhere in the world. Time zones only matter when the number is turned into a date for display.

How do I tell if a timestamp is in seconds or milliseconds?

For current dates, seconds have 10 digits and milliseconds have 13. The converter detects this automatically. JavaScript's Date.now() returns milliseconds; most Unix tools, PHP and Python's time.time() return seconds.

What does Unix time do with leap seconds?

It ignores them. Every day is treated as exactly 86,400 seconds, which keeps date arithmetic simple. The difference from astronomical time is handled by clock synchronisation, not by the timestamp.

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