If you regularly investigate raw databases, executables or other binary files then you might sometimes find “dates” that seem to be random numbers, like 12883423549317375.

This probably means the date is encoded, but there are many different formats, and no obvious way to detect which one has been used.

DateDecoder is a freeware tool for Windows which provides an easy way to solve the problem.

Simply paste one or more values into the “Source date/ times” box, click Decode, and the program tries to decipher them using 13 of the most common formats (Ticks, NSDate, Java, HFS, Filetime, AOL, Chrome, OLE, Mac, GPS, and some Unix variations).

Anything which falls inside a sensible range (2000-today by default, but you can change this) is displayed in a grid, and may be exported to XLS or CSV.

There’s no need to understand particular date formats, just paste a value and click Decode

In our example, 12883423549317375 was instantly detected as a Chrome date, 05/04/2009.

It’s not for everyone, but if you regularly explore the innards of binary files then DateDecode could solve some mysteries and save you a little time.

DateDecoder is a freeware tool for Windows.