What is epoch time?
Epoch time is a way of representing a point in time as a single number. Specifically, it counts the seconds that have elapsed since midnight UTC on January 1, 1970 — a moment known as the unix epoch. You might also see it called unix time, POSIX time, or simply a unix timestamp. A value like 1718451000 is just a count of seconds from that starting point.
This format is popular because it avoids the complexity of time zones and calendars. A unix timestamp means the same thing everywhere — whether it comes from a server log in Tokyo, an API response in Berlin, or a database row in New York. This epoch converter supports the four common precisions you will encounter: seconds (10 digits), milliseconds (13 digits, used by JavaScript and Java), microseconds (16 digits, common in PostgreSQL), and nanoseconds (19 digits, used by Go and tracing tools). It detects the format automatically so you don't have to think about it.
If you want to see the current unix timestamp ticking in real time, take a look at the live epoch clock.
Convert a unix timestamp to a human-readable date
Paste a unix timestamp into the input above and the converter instantly shows the corresponding date in a human-readable format. You get results in your local time zone, UTC, and ISO 8601 — along with relative time so you can quickly tell how long ago (or in the future) the moment was. Whether you are debugging a linux timestamp from server logs, inspecting an epoch timestamp in an API payload, or just trying to make sense of a number you found in a database, the conversion happens in your browser with no round-trip to a server.
Convert a date to a unix timestamp
Going the other way is just as straightforward. Use the date picker above to choose a local or UTC date and time, or type an ISO 8601 string like 2024-06-15T12:30:00Z, and the converter returns the matching unix timestamp in seconds, milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds. This is useful when you need to pass an epoch value to a cron job, set an expiry in an API call, or store a date as a plain number in a database.