How do I calculate the difference between two times in seconds using Excel?

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To calculate the difference between two times in seconds using Excel, you can use the formula “=(time2-time1)*24*60*60”. This formula calculates the difference in hours, converts it to minutes by multiplying by 60, and then converts it to seconds by multiplying by 60 again. This will give you the accurate time difference in seconds between the two given times.

Excel: Calculate Difference Between Two Times in Seconds

You can use the following formula to calculate the difference between two times in seconds in Excel:

=(B2-A2)*86400

This particular formula calculates the difference (in seconds) between the times in cells B2 and A2.

By default, the formula B2-A2 would return the difference between cells B2 and A2 in terms of days.

Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day, we must multiply the result of B2-A2 by 86,400 to get the difference in terms of seconds instead of days.

The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.

Example: Calculate Difference Between Times in Seconds in Excel

Suppose we have the following two columns in Excel that show the start and end times for some events:

We can type the following formula into cell C2 to calculate the difference between the start and end time for the first row in terms of seconds:

=(B2-A2)*86400

We can then drag and fill this formula down to each remaining cell in column C:

Excel difference between two times in seconds

The values in column C display the difference in seconds between the Start Time and End Time for each row.

For example:

  • There are 1,140 seconds between 1/1/2022 12:15 PM and 1/1/2022 12:34 PM.
  • There are 18,120 seconds between 1/3/2022 4:13 AM and 1/3/2022 9:15 AM.
  • There are 6,480 seconds between 1/15/2022 10:56 AM and 1/15/2022 12:44 PM.

And so on.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:

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