What is RFC 2822 format?

Standard used in **emails** since 2001. Looks like: `Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:30:00 +0100`. Human-readable, but rarely used outside email headers. The tool generates this format if you need to insert a date into a message header.

What is "locale format"?

Format adjusted to **your language and timezone**. In the US it looks like "1/15/2024, 5:30:00 AM". In Poland like "15.01.2024, 11:30:00". Same date, different notation. Useful for inserting into local-language texts, emails, etc.

What does "human-readable" mean?

Human-friendly description like **"3 hours ago"** or **"in 2 days"**. Relative to the current moment. Used in chat apps, social media, blogs - instead of showing "2024-01-15 10:30:00", we prefer "yesterday at 10:30".

Why can't it recognize my date?

Most common issues: **ambiguous formats** ("01/02/2024" - is that February 1st or January 2nd?), **very unusual formatting**, **typos**. Try ISO 8601 (`2024-01-15`) - it's the most universal and unambiguous.

Does it handle timezones?

Yes. The tool **recognizes the timezone** in the entered date (if specified - e.g. `+02:00` or `Z`) and converts to your local timezone for display. If you enter a date without timezone, we assume **your local timezone**.

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Date format converter

Convert a date to ISO 8601, Unix timestamp, RFC 2822 and 7 more formats with one click.

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InputParsed

How do I convert a date to ISO 8601 or Unix timestamp format?

Type a date in any format - the tool auto-detects it and shows it in 10 popular formats at once: ISO 8601, RFC 2822, Unix timestamp (seconds and milliseconds), SQL DATETIME, locale format, human-readable ("3 hours ago").

Click any result - it copies to clipboard. Perfect for developers working with multiple systems where each expects a different date format.

How to use it

Type a date in the field - the tool accepts almost any format (e.g. "2024-01-15", "Jan 15, 2024 10:30", "1700000000").
Below you see the recognized date in ten different formats.
Click any result to copy to clipboard.
If the format wasn't recognized - check that the date is valid, or try ISO 8601 (the most universal format).

When this is useful

Situations when a date needs to change format:

Programming - integrating different APIs - one API returns a timestamp, another ISO, a third RFC 2822. Convert everything to the format you need.
SQL and databases - "DATETIME format for MySQL" needs "2024-01-15 10:30:00", but your app has a timestamp. Convert in a second.
Server logs - sometimes UTC ISO, sometimes epoch, sometimes RFC. All formats supported.
CSV / Excel exports - different apps require different formats. See what each format looks like here.
API documentation - what does the ISO 8601 standard look like for January 1, 2025? Type "2025-01-01" and see.
Reading other people's logs - "what does 1705276800 mean?". Unix timestamp to a readable date.

To convert just a Unix timestamp, use our dedicated Unix timestamp converter. To calculate the difference between two dates, see date difference.

Questions and answers

International date standard since 1988. Format: `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ` (e.g. `2024-01-15T10:30:00Z`). The "Z" means UTC timezone. Main advantage: ambiguity is impossible - you'll never confuse the month with the day (like with 01/02/2024 - is that January or February?). Used in APIs, JSON, XML, databases.

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