What is a Unix timestamp?
A Unix timestamp (also called epoch time or POSIX time) is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC — a moment known as the "Unix epoch." Right now, that number is somewhere around 1.7 billion.
Developers use timestamps because they're timezone-independent, easy to store in databases, simple to compare (bigger number = later date), and take up very little space.
Seconds vs. milliseconds
Some systems (like JavaScript's Date.now()) return timestamps in milliseconds (13 digits), while traditional Unix time uses seconds (10 digits). ToolKnit's converter auto-detects which format you've entered and handles both correctly.
Two-way conversion
The tool works in both directions:
- Timestamp → Date — Paste a Unix timestamp and instantly see the full date, time, day of week, and relative time (e.g., "3 hours ago")
- Date → Timestamp — Pick a date and time using the date picker to get the corresponding Unix timestamp in both seconds and milliseconds
Live clock
The tool shows the current Unix timestamp updating in real time. This is useful for debugging APIs, checking log timestamps, or generating "right now" values for database queries.
Who uses this?
- Developers — Debugging API responses, database records, and log files
- QA engineers — Verifying timestamp fields in test data
- DevOps — Reading server logs and cron job schedules
- Data analysts — Converting epoch columns in CSV/JSON exports
The Year 2038 problem
32-bit systems store Unix time as a signed integer that maxes out on January 19, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC. After that, the counter overflows. Most modern systems have already moved to 64-bit timestamps, which won't overflow for another 292 billion years. ToolKnit uses JavaScript's 64-bit number type, so you're safe.
Try it now: Open Timestamp Converter — free, instant, no sign-up required.