Unix Timestamp Converter
Convert between Unix timestamps and readable dates, in your own time zone and in UTC.
Converters| Locale | |
|---|---|
| UTC | |
| ISO 8601 | |
| Secondi | |
| Millisecondi | |
| Relativo |
What a Unix timestamp is
It is the number of seconds since midnight on 1 January 1970 in UTC. Its virtue is being a single number, with no time zone and no date format to interpret — which is why it turns up almost everywhere, from logs to authentication tokens to web interface fields.
Seconds or milliseconds
This is the ambiguity that wastes the most time. Many languages use seconds, but JavaScript and Java work in milliseconds. A millisecond value read as seconds lands roughly fifty thousand years in the future; a second value read as milliseconds lands back in 1970. Here the unit is inferred from the length of the number, which is the practical rule everyone uses.
Time zones
A timestamp is always UTC: it carries no time zone information at all. The date you get from it therefore depends on where you are, and that conversion happens in your browser, which is the only place that knows. UTC is shown too — that is the one to compare against server logs.
The year 2038
Systems storing the timestamp in a signed 32-bit integer overflow on 19 January 2038. The limit still exists in older software and in some embedded systems: if you work with dates far in the future, it is worth checking how many bits the receiving system uses.
Frequently asked questions
By length: a seconds timestamp for a recent date has ten digits, a milliseconds one has thirteen. The tool applies this rule automatically.
Because the timestamp is always UTC and the conversion depends on your time zone, daylight saving included. The detected zone is shown below the table.