What is Unix Time?
Computers need a simple, unambiguous way to record moments in time. Writing “16/10/2026 5:30 PM” is confusing — is that day-month or month-day? Which time zone? Unix time solves this by counting the seconds elapsed since the “Unix epoch”: 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. The timestamp 1800000000, for example, is one specific instant, no matter where you are.
Databases, server logs, APIs, JWT tokens and analytics tools all use Unix timestamps. This converter turns those numbers into readable dates in any of 400+ time zones, and turns dates back into timestamps.
How to Use the Timestamp Converter
Timestamp to date
- Paste the timestamp into Enter Timestamp.
- Select Seconds or Milliseconds.
- Choose a target time zone. You will see the date in your local time, in UTC and in the selected zone.
Date to timestamp
- Pick a date and time.
- Select the time zone that date belongs to.
- Copy the generated timestamp.
The live clock at the top shows the current Unix time, ticking every second.
Example Timestamps
| Timestamp | UTC | India (IST) |
|---|---|---|
0 | 1 Jan 1970, 00:00:00 | 1 Jan 1970, 05:30:00 |
1735689600 | 1 Jan 2025, 00:00:00 | 1 Jan 2025, 05:30:00 |
1800000000 | 15 Jan 2027, 08:00:00 | 15 Jan 2027, 13:30:00 |
2147483647 | 19 Jan 2038, 03:14:07 | 19 Jan 2038, 08:44:07 |
Seconds vs Milliseconds
The most common timestamp bug is mixing up seconds and milliseconds. If a converted date shows a year like 57,000 or 1970, you probably used the wrong unit.
- 10 digits → seconds (Unix, PHP, MySQL, most APIs)
- 13 digits → milliseconds (JavaScript, Java, many analytics tools)
To convert, multiply seconds by 1,000 or divide milliseconds by 1,000.
Getting Timestamps in Code
// JavaScript (seconds)
Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)
// PHP
time();
# Python
import time; int(time.time())
-- MySQL
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP();
# Linux / macOS shell
date +%sWhy Developers Prefer Timestamps
- Time zone independent: store once in UTC, display in the user’s local time.
- Easy maths: the difference between two timestamps is simply the number of seconds between them.
- Compact and sortable: a single integer sorts correctly and indexes efficiently in databases.
The Year 2038 Problem
Older systems store Unix time as a signed 32-bit integer, whose maximum value is 2,147,483,647 — reached on 19 January 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC. One second later, such systems would wrap around to a negative number representing December 1901. Modern 64-bit systems are not affected, but embedded devices and legacy software still need checking.
Related Tools
- Days Calculator — count days between two dates.
- Add / Subtract Time — work with durations.
- JSON Formatter — inspect API responses that contain timestamps.