Have you ever copy-pasted a .NET ticks value from a log file into some random online converter at 2 AM, desperately trying to figure out when exactly something went wrong? If so, you should read this article.
A few months ago, I released DevTicks, a Chrome extension that lives right in your browser toolbar, providing you with accurate .NET ticks to DateTime to Unix Epoch conversion, as well as multi-timezone comparison, all without the need to login or provide any data.
The story of how I built it, as well as everything it can do.
The Problem: Timestamp Hell Is Real
Ask any backend dev, cloud dev, or QA tester who has to deal with .NET applications. At some point, you've encountered one of the following:
- You're debugging an Azure or AWS log, and you see the timestamp
638765432000000000. What time is that? - You're writing a SQL/MongoDB query to fetch data for "today" and need the start/end of day as ticks.
- You need to calculate a Unix timestamp for an API payload. Is it seconds or milliseconds?
- Your team is distributed across IST, EST, and CET time zones, and you need to figure out what "3 PM server time" means.
- You take a JWT token and paste it into jwt.io. The exp field has a timestamp. Is it Unix seconds or milliseconds?
The answer to all of the above is DevTicks, which solves all of the above problems within your browser.
What It Actually Does
Ticks <-> DateTime <-> Unix — all at once
You type in any one of the three and the rest fill in immediately.
Got a tick value from a log? Paste it. You'll see the exact DateTime and the Unix equivalent.
Got a Unix timestamp from an API response? Paste it. You'll see the DateTime and the corresponding .NET tick.
Need to go the other way — start from a human date and generate a tick for a database query? Type it in.
It's simple, but having all three up to date, changing live, and in one place... it's genuinely removed friction from something I was doing multiple times a day.
Multi-timezone view
This one's my personal favourite feature. You enter in the timestamp and it'll display the same moment in time in UTC, IST, EST, PST, CST, CET — all at once.
I work with people across different timezones. And whenever someone on the team says "the issue happened at 14:30 server time", half the team has to go convert that in their head. Now I just open DevTicks and share what it shows. Done.
DST handled correctly
Most simple timezone converters just add a fixed offset. That works fine until you're on the other side of daylight saving time - then your EST is really EDT and you're off by an hour.
DevTicks works out DST too. The times it gives you are the actual local times, not just UTC plus a hardcoded number.
Start and End of Day ticks
This one is very specific but very useful. A lot of .NET-based systems store timestamps as ticks in the database. When you want to query "all records from today", you need the tick value at midnight and the tick value at 23:59:59.999.
DevTicks generates those for you with one click. Copy, paste into your query, move on.
Copy buttons on everything
Every output has a copy button next to it. No selecting, no triple-clicking, no accidentally grabbing an extra character. Small thing, but when you're switching between tabs and terminals all day it adds up.
It runs fully offline
Nothing is sent anywhere. No API calls, no analytics, no account, no "sign in to save your conversions". Everything happens in your browser locally. I know this matters when you're working with production logs or anything sensitive.
Some Real Situations Where I've Used This
Debugging logs: raw tick value in a trace, need to know the exact time to correlate with something else. Open DevTicks, paste, done in three seconds.
Writing time-range queries: need all records from today in a ticks-based column. Generate start and end of day ticks, paste directly into the WHERE clause.
API testing: endpoint expects a Unix timestamp in milliseconds. Enter the target datetime, grab the millisecond value, use it in the request body.
JWT inspection: exp claim in a decoded token is a Unix timestamp. Is it expired? What time does it actually represent? Paste it into DevTicks and you immediately see it in your local timezone.
Cross-team scheduling: we have a deployment at Unix time 1729000000. What time is that for each person on the team? Open DevTicks, see it in every relevant timezone at once.
Kafka / Elasticsearch / Azure logs: different systems log time differently. Having one place that handles all the formats means I'm not context-switching between three different tools depending on which system I'm reading from.
Who Will Get the Most Out of This
Honestly, if you're doing backend work in .NET or C#, this will become part of your daily workflow pretty quickly. Same if you're in DevOps or cloud engineering and you spend time reading logs from Azure or AWS.
QA engineers who build or validate timestamp-heavy test data -- this helps. API developers who deal with time-sensitive request payloads -- this helps. Anyone on a distributed team who's constantly mentally converting timezones -- this definitely helps.
If you mainly work on frontend and rarely touch timestamps, you probably won't use it much. But if any of the scenarios above sound familiar, give it a try.
How to Use It
It's a Chrome extension so there's no setup. Install it, click the icon in your toolbar, and it's just there.
You enter a value in whatever format you have — DateTime, tick, or Unix — and everything else updates. If you want to see it across timezones, that section is right below. Copy whatever you need and close it.
That's the whole flow. I deliberately kept it that way because when you're debugging, the last thing you want is to figure out how to use a new tool.
One More Thing
I'm still actively working on this. There are features I want to add more timezone options, maybe support for other tick-based systems, possibly a format for reading ticks directly from clipboard. If you use it and something's missing or broken, leave a comment here or reach out. Real feedback from actual developers is the only way I know what to prioritize.
Install DevTicks
=> Add to Chrome — DevTicks on the Chrome Web Store
It's free, no account, works offline.
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