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How to convert between date and Unix timestamp in Excel?

Unix timestamp is also called Epoch time or POSIX time which is wildly used in many operating systems or file formats. This tutorial is talking about the conversion between date and Unix timestamp in Excel.

Convert date to timestamp

Convert date and time to timestamp

Convert timestamp to date

More tutorials about datetime conversion...

arrow blue right bubble Convert date to timestamp

To convert date to timestamp, a formula can work it out.

Select a blank cell, suppose Cell C2, and type this formula =(C2-DATE(1970,1,1))*86400 into it and press Enter key, if you need, you can apply a range with this formula by dragging the autofill handle. Now a range of date cells have been converted to Unix timestamps.
doc-convert-date-unix-1

Remove Time From DateTime

In Excel, to remove 12:11:31 from 1/21/2017 12:11:31 and make it exactly 1/21/2017, you may have to take some time to create a formula to handle this job. However, the Remove time from date utility of Kutools for Excel can quickly remove timestamp permanently from the date time formatting in Excel.
Click to download 30-day free trial.

doc-convert-date-unix-1

arrow blue right bubble Convert date and time to timestamp

There is a formula that can help you convert date and time to Unix timestamp.

1. Firstly, you need to type the Coordinated Universal Time into a cell, 1/1/1970. See screenshot:
doc-convert-date-unix-2

2. Then type this formula =(A1-$C$1)*86400 into a cell, press Enter key, then if you need, drag the autofill handle to a range with this formula. See screenshot:
doc-convert-date-unix-3

Tips: In the formula, A1 is the date and time cell, C1 is the coordinate universal time you typed.

arrow blue right bubble Convert timestamp to date

If you have a list of timestamp needed to convert to date, you can do as below steps:

1. In a blank cell next to your timestamp list and type this formula =(((A1/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1), press Enter key, then drag the auto fill handle to a range you need.
doc-convert-date-unix-4

2. Then right click the cells used the formula, and select Format Cells from the context menu, then in the popping Format Cells dialog, under Number tab, click Date in the Category list, then select the date type in the right section.
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3. Click OK, now you can see the Unix timestamps have been converted to dates.
doc-convert-date-unix-6

Notes:

1. A1 indicates the timestamp cell you need.

2. This formula also can use to convert timestamp series to date and time, just format the result to the date and time format.

3. The above formula converts 10-digits number to a standard datetime, if you want to convert 11-digits number, or 13-digits number, or 16-digits number to a standard datetime in Excel, please use formula as below:

Convert 11-digits number to date: =A1/864000+DATE(1970,1,1)

Convert 13-digits number to date: =A1/86400000+DATE(1970,1,1)

Convert 16-digits number to date: =A1/86400000000+DATE(1970,1,1)

For different lengths of number which needed to be converted to datetime, just change the number of zeros of the divisor in the formula to correctly get the result.

Tip: If you are in trouble with remembering complex formulas, here the Auto Text tool of Kutools for Excel can save all formulas you used in a pane for you, then, you can reuse them in anywhere anytime, what you only need to do is change the references to match your real need.  Click for free download it now.
doc-convert-date-unix-6

Relative Articles:

  • How to remove time from date in Excel?
    If there has a column of date with time stamp, such as 2/17/2012 12:23, and you don’t want to retain the time stamp and want to remove the time 12:23 from the date and only leave the date 2/17/2012. How could you quickly remove time from date in mulitple cells in Excel?

  • How to combine date and time into one cell in Excel?
    There are two columns in a worksheet, one is the date, the other is time. Is there any way to quickly combine these two columns into one, and keep the time format? Now, This article introduces two ways in Excel to combine date column and time column into one and keep the time format.

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Comments (23)
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Andrey
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Thank you! (Your comment is too short! - it was responce to my first line, so I just add this junk :P )
Andrey
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VAS
Guest     Andrey
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Using =(((((G2/1000)/60)/60)-8)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1) for PST
VAS
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Lilian
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I followed your instructions here, but I get ########## in my excel file. I formatted it to date time. Any suggestions?
Lilian
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Sunny
Sunny     Lilian
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Excuse me, could you tell me which part did not work in your file? Could you upload the detail screenshot for me to have a look?
Sunny
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Scott Miller
Guest     Sunny
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Goggle for "excel convert timestamp to date". Google, grabbing the first answer which is for date to timestamp, gives the answer of "=(A1-DATE(1970,1,1))*86400", which is what Sunny was probably doing. Only if you actually read the content of this page does it become obvious that the actual formula should be something else. To keep the time portion of the timestamp, the formula should be this for UTC "=(A1+DATE(1970,1,1)*86400)/86400". For US Central time, "=(F2+DATE(1970,1,1)*86400-21600)/86400"
Scott Miller
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Sunny
Sunny     Scott Miller
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Thank u for you suppelment.
Sunny
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The Slenderman
Guest     Lilian
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Normally you see ########## if there's too much information to display for how big you have your cells. Enlarge your cell size and see if that resolves the issue.
The Slenderman
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fuad
Guest     Lilian
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yeah me too, I got the same problem
fuad
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Sunny
Sunny     fuad
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Which formula you use?
Sunny
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Boe
Guest     Lilian
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Had the same problem, but I figured it out. The cell has to have number format, not date format...
Boe
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Myles F
Myles F
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One thing to note is that the above is for epoch time in seconds. If you need milliseconds, you need to add a further multiplication / division by 1000. For example, converting from epoch time (milliseconds) to a date would be "=((((A1/1000)/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1)".
Myles F
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Myles F
Myles F     Myles F
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As a side note, the best way to tell if it's seconds or milliseconds is looking at the length of the field; if it's 10 digits, it's seconds, and if it's 13 digits, it's milliseconds. "=LEN(A1)" will tell you how long the value is.
Myles F
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Myles F
Myles F     Myles F
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If that's too much manual work for you (or you have a list that's mixed between seconds and milliseconds), then you can use the following formula to automatically switch between seconds and milliseconds based on the length of the cell: "=((A1/86400)/IF(LEN(A1)=13,1000,1))+DATE(1970,1,1)".
Myles F
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Dan Miller
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IF you have an LDAP 18-Digit timestamp such as 132079258679926000 the below formulas will not work. You first have to convert them as they are based in nano seconds from 1/1/1601. The following formula in Excel converts the LDAP to EPOCH to human dates =(((((A1/10000000)-11644473900)/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1) where A1 refers to your timestamp location
Dan Miller
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Sunny
Sunny     Dan Miller
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Thanks for your supplement.
Sunny
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sharon
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How to convert 21 digits timestamp to human readable date ?
Could someone help please
E.g., 202002191100506253230
sharon
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Krebs
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To convert date for MOODLE the only formula that worked was:


Instead of =(C2-DATE(1970,1,1))*86400

I tried 20/october/1980 and Moodle read 19/october/1980.

I used
=(C2-DATE(1970,1,0))*86400

I tried 20/october/1980 and Moodle read 20/october/1980.
Krebs
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gundppa
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how to convert event time stamp to hour
gundppa
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Roobanraj
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How to convert 11 digits timestamp to human readable date ?
Could someone help please
Roobanraj
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Sunny
Sunny     Roobanraj
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For converting 11 digits timestamp to a standard datetime, use the formula as this:=A1/864000+DATE(1970,1,1), A1 is the cell that contains the 11-digits you want to convert to.
Sunny
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Roobanraj
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How to convert 13 digits timestamp to human readable date ?
Could someone help please
Roobanraj
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Sunny
Sunny     Roobanraj
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Hi, Roobanraj, to convert 13 digits timestamp to a standard datetime, you can use the formula as this:=A1/86400000+DATE(1970,1,1), A1 is the cell that contains the 13-digits you want to convert to.
Sunny
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John
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I have a numeric value of 3721719999 which is suppose to display as 00:06:12 (hh:mm:ss). This time represents the time duration of a video file. The date stamp on the file name is 1/18/2014 4:04 pm, if that offers any further information. I extracted the number using Filelist.exe and this was the result. Thanks!
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