Most programming languages have helpful built-in methods, properties, and functions to make developers’ lives more comfortable. For example, the Date object in Javascript is one of the most used objects that provides us methods and properties to get the Date and related to its formatting. In this example, we will see how to convert Unix timestamp to date in a human-readable format.
How to Convert Timestamp to Date in JavaScript
To convert timestamp to date in JavaScript, convert the Unix timestamp to milliseconds by multiplying with 1000 and then create a Date object by using the new Date() function and finally use the toLocaleString() function to transform the Date object into a language-sensitive representation of the Date.
Steps to convert UNIX timestamp to date in JavaScript
Step 1: Convert Unix timestamp to milliseconds
To convert timestamp to milliseconds, use the new Date() constructor and pass the timestamp to the new Date() constructor, and multiply the output by 1000 to get the milliseconds.
Let’s say we have a timestamp like this: 1575909015
const unixTimestamp = 1575909015
const milliseconds = unixTimestamp * 1000
console.log(milliseconds)
Output
1575909015000
We get the milliseconds from the timestamp by multiplying it by 1000.
Step 2: Convert milliseconds to Date object
To convert milliseconds to Date Object in JavaScript, use the new Date() constructor. The Date Object lets us work with dates. JavaScript Date object contains the expression for the time elapsed since the 1, Jan 1970 00:00:00 UTC in milliseconds.
Let’s continue with the above example. We got the output: 1575909015000
after converting it into milliseconds. Let’s convert this into a Date object.
const unixTimestamp = 1575909015
const milliseconds = unixTimestamp * 1000
const dateObject = new Date(milliseconds)
console.log(dateObject)
Output
2019-12-09T16:30:15.000Z
Explanation
- The new Date() constructor takes a millisecond as an argument. To get the millisecond as an argument, multiply the Unix timestamp by 1000.
- To create a Date object, use the new Date() constructor. The Date object in the given code will describe a single moment in time and represent data in the form of year, month, day, hour, minute, and second for a moment in time.
- In the end, we are left will the dateObject variable, which represents the data object instance. We will use it in the final step.
Step 3: Convert dateObject to human-readable date format
To convert date object to human-readable date in JavaScript, use the toLocaleString() function. The toLocaleString() is a built-in JavaScript method that returns a string with a language-sensitive representation of a date.
Let’s continue with our example; in the previous step, we got 2019-12-09T16:30:15.000Z
as output. Now, let’s pass this output to the toLocaleString() function and get the final human-readable Date we need for this example.
const unixTimestamp = 1575909015
const milliseconds = unixTimestamp * 1000
const dateObject = new Date(milliseconds)
const humanDateFormat = dateObject.toLocaleString()
console.log(humanDateFormat)
Output
12/9/2019, 10:00:15 PM
Explanation
- We created a human-friendly date string using the toLocaleString() function on the dateObject.
- The toLocaleString() function can be called on a dateObject and returns the string. We finally get a Date from the timestamp in humans readable format.
That’s it for this example.

Krunal Lathiya is a Software Engineer with over eight years of experience. He has developed a strong foundation in computer science principles and a passion for problem-solving. Krunal has experience with various programming languages and technologies, including PHP, Python, and expert in JavaScript. He is comfortable working in front-end and back-end development.