Power Automate occasionally requires time values to be expressed as ticks rather than familiar units such as hours or days.
This small calculator makes those conversions easier and also shows the calculation behind the result.
Interactive tool
Ticks Calculator
Convert practical time values into .NET ticks, or convert an existing tick value back into readable time.
addTicks(utcNow(), 36000000000)Commas and spaces are accepted.
What is a tick?#
A tick is a unit of time used by .NET and several Microsoft technologies.
1 tick = 100 nanoseconds
10,000,000 ticks = 1 secondThat means:
| Duration | Ticks |
|---|---|
| 1 second | 10,000,000 |
| 1 minute | 600,000,000 |
| 1 hour | 36,000,000,000 |
| 1 day | 864,000,000,000 |
| 1 week | 6,048,000,000,000 |
Example in Power Automate#
To add one day to the current time using ticks:
addTicks(utcNow(), 864000000000)To subtract one day:
addTicks(utcNow(), -864000000000)The calculator above can generate the tick value for a custom duration and gives you a ready-to-copy Power Automate expression.
Why use this?#
Ticks can be useful when you need precise date and time calculations or when working with expressions and APIs that represent time using .NET tick values.
For most ordinary date arithmetic, functions such as addDays(), addHours() and addMinutes() are easier to read. This tool is intended for the cases where ticks are useful or required.