Unix timestamp converter
Convert Unix epoch timestamps to human dates and back, in seconds or milliseconds — with a live current-time clock.
Timestamp → date
Date → timestamp
Epoch time, both directions
This tool shows the current Unix timestamp ticking live, converts any timestamp into a readable date (in your local time, UTC and ISO 8601 at once), and turns a date back into a timestamp in both seconds and milliseconds. It's the fast answer to the question that comes up constantly when you're staring at a log line or an API response: what time is 1700000000, actually?
Why Unix time exists
A Unix timestamp is simply the number of seconds since midnight UTC on 1 January 1970 — a single number with no timezone, no formatting, no ambiguity. That's why systems store and exchange time this way: it sorts correctly, does arithmetic cleanly (the gap between two events is just a subtraction), and means the same thing everywhere on Earth. The human-readable formatting only happens at the edges, when a value is shown to a person.
Seconds vs milliseconds
The one gotcha worth knowing: some systems count in seconds and others in milliseconds. A telltale sign you've got the wrong unit is a date in 1970 (you treated milliseconds as seconds) or far in the future (the reverse). JavaScript, for instance, works in milliseconds, while many backends and databases use seconds — so when a converted date looks wildly off, suspect the unit first. This tool shows both, so you can match whatever your system expects. Pair it with the cron explainer for anything schedule-related.