How to use the Unix Time Generator
1. The current Unix timestamp is shown at the top and updates every second.
2. Enter any date in the input to convert it to a Unix timestamp.
3. Click any timestamp value to copy it to your clipboard.
What is it?
A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds elapsed since the Unix Epoch: January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC. It is the most portable and unambiguous way to represent a point in time across systems and programming languages.
Unix timestamps are timezone-independent — the same timestamp means the same moment in time everywhere in the world. They're used extensively in databases, APIs, log files, JWT tokens (iat, exp claims), and any system that needs to compare or sort times. JavaScript uses milliseconds (Date.now()), while most other systems use seconds.
Example
Now: 2024-03-15 14:30:00 UTC
Seconds: 1710509400 Milliseconds: 1710509400000 Microseconds: 1710509400000000
Click the Now button to get the current timestamp. APIs typically use seconds; JavaScript Date.now() returns milliseconds.
Benefits
Get the current Unix timestamp without writing code
Copy the current epoch seconds directly into a database query, API request body, or configuration file — no date library needed.
Convert a human-readable date to Unix time for storage
Databases and APIs commonly store time as epoch seconds or milliseconds — convert any calendar date to the right value.
Generate timestamps for test fixtures and seed data
Use specific past or future epoch values to test date-dependent business logic, expiry calculations, and scheduling code.
Verify epoch values in API responses and log entries
Paste a timestamp and confirm it corresponds to the expected point in time — catch off-by-one-second or millisecond errors.
Frequently asked questions
Why does JavaScript use milliseconds?
JavaScript's Date.now() returns milliseconds for higher precision. When working with APIs that return Unix timestamps in seconds, multiply by 1000 before passing to new Date().
What year will Unix timestamps overflow?
32-bit signed integers storing Unix seconds overflow on January 19, 2038 (the Y2K38 problem). 64-bit integers don't overflow for billions of years.