How to add or subtract times to get hours/minutes/seconds in Excel?

In general, summing or subtracting time will get the time format such as hh:mm:ss, but in some cases, you just want to sum or subtract time to get hours or minutes or seconds only, how can you quickly handle it in Excel?

Sum or subtract times to get hours/minutes/seconds with formulas and Format Cell function

Sum or subtract times to get decimal hours/minutes/seconds with Kutools for Excel

Sum or subtract times to get hours/minutes/seconds with formulas and Format Cell function

In Excel, you can add the times first and then format the cells to hours/minutes/seconds.

1. Select a blank cell and type =SUM(A2:B2), and then drag auto fill handle over the cells you need to apply this formula, see screenshot:

2. Then keep the summing cells selected, and right click to select Format Cells from the context menu.

3. Then in the Format Cells dialog, under Number tab, click Custom in the Category section, and then go to type [hh] into the Type textbox in right section. See screenshot:

4. Click OK, and now the summing results have been format as hours only.

Tip: If you want to format cells as minutes, type [mm] into Type textbox, and if you format cells as seconds, type [ss] into Type textbox.

Sum or subtract times to get decimal hours/minutes/seconds with Kutools for Excel

If you want to sum time and then get the results as decimal hours, minutes or seconds, you can use Kutools for Excel’s Convert Time function.

Kutools for Excel, with more than 300 handy functions, makes your jobs more easier.
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1. Select a blank cell and type =SUM(A2:B2), and then drag the autofill handle over cells to sum up time. See screenshot:

2. Keep results selected, and click Kutools > Content > Convert Time, and select an option you need from the sub context menu. See screenshot:

Then you can see the cells are formatted to decimal hours, minutes or seconds.

Convert to decimal hours Convert to decimal minutes Convert to decimal seconds

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