What is the Timestamp Converter?

The Timestamp Converter translates between Unix timestamps and human-readable dates in both directions. Paste in a Unix timestamp, an ISO 8601 date, a UTC string, or a relative expression like "3 hours ago" — the tool detects the format automatically and outputs every equivalent representation at once.

A live clock at the top of the tool shows the current Unix time in seconds and milliseconds, updating every second.

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What is a Unix Timestamp?

A Unix timestamp represents the number of seconds (or milliseconds) elapsed since the Unix epoch — midnight on January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It is the most widely used format for storing and transmitting time in software: databases, APIs, log files, JWT tokens, HTTP headers, and operating system calls all rely on it.

Because a Unix timestamp is a single integer with no timezone attached, it is unambiguous anywhere in the world. Two systems in different timezones that record the same event will produce the same Unix timestamp.

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Supported Input Formats

Unix seconds — a 9 or 10 digit integer such as 1718000000. This is the standard output of most Unix system calls and server-side languages.

Unix milliseconds — a 13 digit integer such as 1718000000000. JavaScript's Date.now() and many web APIs return milliseconds. The tool distinguishes milliseconds from seconds by digit count.

ISO 8601 — the international standard for date and time strings, for example 2024-06-10T12:00:00Z. The T separates the date and time portions; the trailing Z indicates UTC. Offsets like +05:30 are also supported.

UTC string — a human-readable date string such as Mon, 10 Jun 2024 12:00:00 GMT. This format is used in HTTP headers and email timestamps.

Relative expressions — natural language offsets like 2 hours ago, 30 minutes ago, or 3 days from now. Supported units are seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

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Timezone Support

The timezone picker lists every IANA timezone — over 400 entries covering every region worldwide. Selecting a timezone updates the local time output row in real time without affecting any other output. Unix timestamps are always UTC-based, so the timezone selection has no effect on the Unix seconds, Unix milliseconds, ISO 8601, UTC string, or relative outputs.

Your browser's local timezone is selected by default when the tool loads.

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Common Use Cases

Debugging API responses — REST APIs frequently return Unix timestamps in JSON. Paste the value directly into the input to read the human-readable equivalent without writing any code.

Reading log files — server and application logs often store timestamps as Unix seconds or milliseconds. Converting them reveals the exact event time in your local timezone.

Checking JWT expiry — JSON Web Tokens include iat (issued at) and exp (expires) claims as Unix timestamps. Paste either value to see when a token was issued or when it expires.

Cross-timezone scheduling — enter a UTC time and select a destination timezone to confirm the equivalent local time before scheduling a meeting or deployment.

Generating timestamps for testing — use the live clock or relative expressions to quickly generate timestamps for test data without manually calculating epoch offsets.

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Privacy

All conversions happen entirely in your browser. No data is sent to any server.