Unix timestamps are everywhere in software — logs, APIs, databases. This guide explains what epoch time is and how to convert timestamps to readable dates online.
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Open Timestamp Converter →What Is a Unix Timestamp?
A Unix timestamp (also called epoch time) is the number of seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC (the Unix epoch). It's timezone-independent and universally used in computing to represent moments in time.
Example: 1719014400 = March 24, 2026 00:00:00 UTC
Seconds vs Milliseconds
Some systems (like JavaScript's Date.now()) return timestamps in milliseconds rather than seconds. If your timestamp has 13 digits, it's milliseconds. Divide by 1000 to get seconds.
| Digits | Unit | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Seconds | 1719014400 |
| 13 | Milliseconds | 1719014400000 |
Working with Timestamps in Code
# JavaScript
Date.now() // current timestamp (ms)
new Date(1719014400 * 1000) // timestamp → Date
Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) // current timestamp (s)
# Python
import time, datetime
time.time() # current timestamp (float)
datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(1719014400) # → datetime
# SQL
SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(1719014400); -- MySQL
SELECT to_timestamp(1719014400); -- PostgreSQLThe Year 2038 Problem
32-bit systems store Unix timestamps as signed 32-bit integers, which overflow on March 24, 2026 at 03:14:07 UTC. Modern 64-bit systems are not affected and can represent dates billions of years into the future.
Frequently Asked Questions
Math.floor(Date.now()/1000). In Python: int(time.time()). In bash: date +%s.