Convert Unix Time On the Command Line

Commands that can be used convert a unix time to a human readable date on a *nix console.

Replace 123456789 with a unix time.

Mac OS & BSD

Change unix times to human readable dates using the system timezone

date -r 123456789
⇩
Thu Nov 29 14:33:09 MST 1973

Using UTC

date -ur 123456789
⇩
Thu Nov 29 21:33:09 UTC 1973

Linux & Cygwin

Change unix times to human readable dates using the system timezone

date -d @123456789
⇩
Thu Nov 29 14:33:09 USMST 1973

Using UTC

date -du @123456789
⇩
Thu Nov 29 21:33:09 UTC 1973

Older versions of Linux

Change unix times to human readable dates using the system timezone

echo 123456789 | awk '{print strftime("%c", $0)}'
⇩
Thu Nov 29 14:33:09 1973

Using UTC

echo 123456789 | TZ=0 awk '{print strftime("%c", $0)}'
⇩
Thu Nov 29 21:33:09 1973