About ISO 8601 Duration Parser

Parse P3Y6M4DT12H30M5S into years, months, weeks, days, time. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Date / Time collection.

Use Cases

• API developers parsing ISO 8601 durations from YouTube or Azure
• Backend devs converting duration strings to human-readable formats
• DevOps engineers interpreting interval fields from cloud provider APIs
• Data analysts decoding duration columns in analytics exports

Tips

• Paste a full ISO 8601 duration like P3Y6M4DT12H30M5S
• Output breaks down years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds
• Use the T separator to distinguish date from time components

Fun Facts

• ISO 8601 duration format was first published in 1988 and uses the 'P' prefix (for 'period') — making P1Y2M3D mean '1 year, 2 months, 3 days.'
• YouTube's Data API v3 returns video durations in ISO 8601 format (e.g., PT4M13S for a 4-minute 13-second video), surprising many developers who encounter it for the first time.
• The ISO 8601 duration format can also express durations as start/end datetime pairs or as start/duration pairs, though the PnYnMnD form is by far the most common.

FAQ

What's ISO 8601 duration format?

P[n]Y[n]M[n]W[n]DT[n]H[n]M[n]S. Example: P3Y6M4DT12H30M5S = 3 years, 6 months, 4 days, 12 hours, 30 min, 5 seconds.

Who uses this format?

XML Schema, JSON APIs, GraphQL schemas, Kubernetes TTL fields. Wherever duration needs to be machine-parseable.

Can I go duration → ISO?

Toggle — enter 'human' duration fields, get ISO string. Useful when writing API contracts or validators.

What about fractional seconds?

P0DT0H0M0.5S is 500ms. Parsers vary on support; the tool emits the form your consumer specifies.