Timestamp → Date
Date → Timestamp
Enter a Unix timestamp to see the date it represents in both your local time and UTC, or pick a date to get its timestamp. The tool auto-detects whether your number is in seconds or milliseconds, which is the most common source of confusion.
What is a Unix timestamp?
A Unix timestamp (also called epoch time) is simply the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 — a fixed moment known as the "Unix epoch." Because it's a single integer in UTC with no timezone or formatting baked in, it's an unambiguous, easy-to-compare way for computers to store and exchange a moment in time. When you display it to a person, you convert it into a local date and time.
One catch: many systems (especially JavaScript) use milliseconds since the epoch instead of seconds — a number 1,000× larger. A seconds timestamp for a recent date has 10 digits; a milliseconds one has 13.
When and why you'd use it
- Reading logs and databases — server logs, APIs, and databases frequently store times as epoch integers.
- Debugging — translating a timestamp in an API response or JWT (see our JSON Formatter) into a readable date.
- Scheduling and comparisons — subtracting two timestamps gives an exact duration in seconds, with no calendar math.
Worked examples
Frequently asked questions
Seconds or milliseconds — which do I have?
Count the digits. For dates in the current era, a seconds timestamp is ~10 digits and a milliseconds timestamp is ~13. JavaScript's Date.now() returns milliseconds; most Unix tools and databases use seconds.
What exactly is "the epoch"?
Midnight UTC on 1 January 1970 — the zero point chosen by early Unix systems. Every timestamp is counted from there.
Does the timestamp itself have a timezone?
No — a Unix timestamp is always in UTC. The timezone only comes in when you convert it to a human-readable date, which is why this tool shows both your local time and UTC.
What's the "Year 2038 problem"?
Systems that store the timestamp in a signed 32-bit integer overflow on 19 January 2038. Modern systems use 64-bit integers, which push the limit hundreds of billions of years out.