Question 1

What is a Unix timestamp?

Accepted Answer

A Unix timestamp (also called epoch time or POSIX time) is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC. It is widely used in programming and databases as a universal way to represent a point in time, independent of time zones.

Question 2

What is the Unix epoch?

Accepted Answer

The Unix epoch is the reference point for Unix time: January 1, 1970, at 00:00:00 UTC. All Unix timestamps are measured as the number of seconds before or after this date. A timestamp of 0 corresponds exactly to the epoch.

Question 3

What is the difference between seconds and milliseconds timestamps?

Accepted Answer

Standard Unix timestamps are in seconds (10 digits, e.g. 1700000000). Many programming languages like JavaScript use millisecond timestamps (13 digits, e.g. 1700000000000). This tool automatically detects and handles both formats when converting to a date.

Question 4

What is the Year 2038 problem?

Accepted Answer

The Year 2038 problem occurs because many systems store Unix timestamps as a 32-bit signed integer, which can only represent dates up to January 19, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC. After that, the integer overflows. Modern 64-bit systems do not have this limitation.

Question 5

Is my data sent to a server?

Accepted Answer

No. All conversions happen entirely in your browser using JavaScript. No data is transmitted, stored, or logged anywhere.

Question 6

How do I get the current Unix timestamp in code?

Accepted Answer

In JavaScript: Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000). In Python: import time; int(time.time()). In PHP: time(). In Java: System.currentTimeMillis() / 1000. In C/C++: time(NULL). In Ruby: Time.now.to_i.

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