It is possible to apply various conversions between time units in Excel. For instance, converting days to hours, hours to minutes, minutes to seconds and so on. These can be reversed as well. All these conversions can be done by basic mathematical operations, or using a built-in function, called CONVERT function.
We know that 1 hour = 60 minutes = 3600 seconds and 1 day = 24 hours. So, we can convert between time units. If you don’t want to deal with math, we recommend you to use CONVERT function to convert time units. You will see examples for both way.
The values and their meanings you can use with CONVERT function for time conversion listed below:
- “yr”: year
- “day”: day
- “hr”: hour
- “mn”: minute
- “sec”: second
Convert between days and hours
Converting days to hours is a simple ratio expression. As we know that 1 day = 24 hours, we can type this in a cell like “=day * 24” in Excel. For instance, 3 days equals to 72 hours. The formula for this is as follows.
=3*24
Another way is to use the built-in CONVERT function like below. This converts a day value in cell B4 to hours.
=CONVERT (B4,”day”,”hr”)
You can type value directly instead of using cell reference like below. This converts 3 days to 72 hours just as the formula above.
=CONVERT (3,”day”,”hr”)
To convert from hours to days, divide the number of days by 24. For instance, 240 hours equals to 10 days. The formulas below give same result.
=240/24
=CONVERT (240,”hr”,”day”)
Conversion between hours and minutes
To convert hours to minutes, we can type “=hour * 60” in a cell because there are 60 minutes in 1 hour. For example, 2 hours equals to 120 minutes by =2*60. So, you can type the formula like below.
=2*60
Let’s convert this with CONVERT function. The formula below converts 2 hours to 120 minutes.
=CONVERT (2,”hr”,”mn”)
To convert from minutes to hours, divide the number of minutes by 60. For instance, 240 minutes equals to 4 hours because 240/60=4.
=240/60
With CONVERT function, just change the second and the third parameter as in the following formula.
=CONVERT (240,”mn”,”hr”)
The formula converts 240 minutes to 4 hours.
Convert between minutes and seconds
As there are 60 seconds in 1 minute, we type “=minute * 60” in a cell to convert minutes to seconds. For example, 5 minutes equals to 300 seconds. The formula for this conversion is =5*60.
As another option, type the following formula to convert 5 minutes to 300 seconds.
=CONVERT (5,”mn”,”sec”)
From seconds to minutes, just change parameters. The following formula converts 300 seconds to 5 minutes.
=CONVERT (300,”sec”,”mn”)