Epoch / Unix Time Converter

What is a Unix timestamp?

A Unix timestamp, or epoch time, is the number of seconds that have passed since January 1, 1970 (UTC). It's how most programming languages, databases, and APIs store and compare dates internally, because a single number is far easier to work with than parsing text dates in dozens of different formats. This tool converts between that raw number and a readable, human date.

Storing dates as a single incrementing number also makes comparisons trivial for a computer, checking whether one event happened before another is just comparing two numbers, no calendar logic, time zones, or leap years to account for at the storage level.

How to convert Unix timestamps online

Enter a Unix timestamp to see it converted into a readable date and time, or pick a date and time to get its corresponding Unix timestamp. Dates are shown in your local browser time zone by default, while the timestamp itself always represents UTC seconds, which is how it's meant to be stored and compared.

This distinction matters a lot in practice, the same timestamp will always represent the exact same instant everywhere in the world, even though the human-readable date and time shown will differ depending on which time zone is viewing it.

Common use cases

• Debugging an API response or database record that stores dates as Unix timestamps.
• Converting a log file timestamp into a readable date while investigating an issue.
• Checking what date and time a specific timestamp value actually represents.
• Generating a timestamp for a specific date and time to use in code or a query.
• Verifying that a scheduled job or expiration time was calculated correctly.

Tips for best results

Some systems store timestamps in milliseconds rather than seconds, which will look like a much larger number, if your conversion result looks wildly off, like a date thousands of years in the future, check whether you need to divide the value by 1000 first.

Why use Convert369's Epoch Converter

The conversion happens instantly in your browser using your own system clock and time zone, with no sign-up or ads getting in the way. It's free and built specifically for the quick, repeated lookups developers do dozens of times a week.

It's worth bookmarking this page if you work with APIs or databases regularly, since Unix timestamp lookups are one of those small tasks that come up often enough to be annoying without a fast tool, but rarely often enough to justify writing your own conversion script for it.

It's also worth remembering that leap seconds exist and are occasionally added to keep civil time aligned with the Earth's rotation, but Unix time as commonly implemented ignores them entirely, treating every day as exactly 86400 seconds. For the vast majority of everyday development and debugging use cases this distinction never matters, but it's a detail worth knowing if you ever work with systems that require true leap-second-aware timekeeping.

Either way, this tool is built around the common case that covers the overwhelming majority of everyday development work.