Using Discord Timestamps in Bots, Embeds & Webhooks

Same syntax, any source

Discord's client doesn't distinguish between a timestamp a person typed and one a bot generated — both are just text matching the <t:UNIX:FORMAT> pattern, and both render identically. That means anywhere your bot sends text — a reply, a scheduled announcement, an embed field, a webhook payload — you can drop in a correctly formatted timestamp and it will render live, in each reader's own timezone, with no extra work on Discord's end.

Generating Unix seconds in code

You need the target moment as whole seconds since the Unix epoch (10 digits). Whatever language your bot is written in, whole seconds are required — sending milliseconds (13 digits) will break Discord's parser. Debugging a value your code already produced? Paste it into the Unix timestamp converter to see the date it represents before you ship it.

JavaScript / TypeScript (Discord.js v14)

import { Client, GatewayIntentBits, time, TimestampStyles } from 'discord.js';

// Method 1: Using template strings
const unixSeconds = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);
const timestampMarkup = `<t:${unixSeconds}:R>`; // e.g. "in 5 minutes"

// Method 2: Using discord.js built-in time() helper
const eventDate = new Date(Date.now() + 3600 * 1000);
const formatted = time(eventDate, TimestampStyles.RelativeTime);

await channel.send(`Event starts ${formatted}!`);

Python (discord.py / Disnake / Nextcord)

import time
from datetime import datetime, timezone
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

# Method 1: Direct Unix timestamp with f-strings
unix_now = int(time.time())
timestamp_markup = f"<t:{unix_now}:R>"

# Method 2: Using discord.utils.format_dt helper
future_dt = datetime(2026, 12, 31, 20, 0, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
formatted = discord.utils.format_dt(future_dt, style="F")

@bot.command()
async def raid(ctx):
    await ctx.send(f"Next raid begins {formatted} ({discord.utils.format_dt(future_dt, 'R')})")

Discord Webhook JSON Payload

{
  "content": "📢 Server Maintenance Notice",
  "embeds": [
    {
      "title": "Scheduled Patch Maintenance",
      "description": "Servers will be offline starting <t:1735689600:F> (<t:1735689600:R>).",
      "fields": [
        {
          "name": "Expected Return",
          "value": "<t:1735696800:t> local time",
          "inline": true
        }
      ],
      "color": 5793266
    }
  ]
}

Timestamps inside embeds

Discord embeds have their own dedicated timestamp field (shown as a small date next to the footer), which is separate from putting <t:UNIX:FORMAT> markup inside an embed's description or a field's value. You can use either independently, or both together — the dedicated footer timestamp for "when this embed was generated," and inline timestamp markup within the body for something the embed is actually about, like an event start time.

Free HTTP REST API

Further reading

For a full cheat sheet of all seven format letters (t, T, d, D, f, F, R), see the Discord timestamp cheat sheet. If a generated timestamp is rendering as raw text, check why a Discord timestamp might not be working. Need the creation time of amessage.id, user.id, or any other Discord object instead of a value your own code produced? See the Discord snowflake decoder — a snowflake ID isn't a plain Unix timestamp, so it needs a different calculation.