Unix Timestamp in Bash

Look up the current epoch time and convert between Unix seconds and UTC dates in Bash.

Get the current timestamp

date -u +%s

Timestamp to date

if date --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  date -u -d @1700000000 '+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ'
else
  date -u -r 1700000000 '+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ'
fi

Date to timestamp

if date --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  date -u -d '2023-11-14T22:13:20Z' +%s
else
  date -u -j -f '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ' '2023-11-14T22:13:20Z' +%s
fi

Open 1700000000 in the converter

Current Unix time

Seconds—

Milliseconds—

UTC: —
My time zone: —

Official reference ↗

Free to use. Your input stays in this browser.

How to use it

Copy the current-time example into your Bash environment to read Unix seconds.
Run the second example to display 1700000000 as a UTC date.
Run the last example to convert that date back into seconds.

Bash uses the system date command. GNU date takes -d, while macOS uses -r for epoch seconds and -j -f to parse a date without changing the system clock.