BLANCO

Q: What is a Discord snowflake?

A snowflake is the 64-bit ID Discord assigns to every user, message, channel, guild, and role. The first 42 bits are a millisecond timestamp, followed by 5 bits of worker ID, 5 bits of process ID, and a 12-bit per-process increment.

Q: How do I get the creation date from a Discord ID?

Shift the ID right by 22 bits and add the Discord epoch, 1420070400000. In JavaScript: new Date(Number(BigInt(id) >> 22n) + 1420070400000). The result is the exact moment the object was created.

Q: What is the Discord epoch?

The Discord epoch is 1420070400000 milliseconds — the first second of 2015 (2015-01-01T00:00:00Z). Snowflake timestamps are counted from this point, not the Unix epoch.

Developer · blancodagoat.dev

Guides

DECODE A DISCORD SNOWFLAKE

Every Discord ID — for a user, message, channel, guild, or role — is a snowflake: a 64-bit number that embeds the exact millisecond it was created. That means any ID tells you when the thing behind it was made. Here is the layout and the formula.

→ OPEN THE SNOWFLAKE DECODER

THE BIT LAYOUT

Bits 63–22 (42 bits): milliseconds since the Discord epoch.
Bits 21–17 (5 bits): internal worker ID.
Bits 16–12 (5 bits): internal process ID.
Bits 11–0 (12 bits): a per-process increment, reset each millisecond.

THE FORMULA

Discord epoch = 1420070400000 (2015-01-01T00:00:00Z).
Timestamp (ms) = (snowflake >> 22) + 1420070400000.
In JavaScript, use BigInt so precision survives:
new Date(Number(BigInt(id) >> 22n) + 1420070400000)

WORKED EXAMPLE

ID 175928847299117063
175928847299117063 >> 22 = 41944705796
41944705796 + 1420070400000 = 1462015105796 ms
new Date(1462015105796) → 2016-04-30T11:18:25.796Z

FAQ

What is a Discord snowflake?

The 64-bit ID Discord assigns to every user, message, channel, guild, and role. The first 42 bits are a millisecond timestamp, then 5 bits of worker ID, 5 bits of process ID, and a 12-bit per-process increment.

How do I get the creation date from a Discord ID?

Shift the ID right by 22 bits and add the Discord epoch: new Date(Number(BigInt(id) >> 22n) + 1420070400000). Or paste it into the snowflake decoder.

What is the Discord epoch?

1420070400000 ms — the first second of 2015. Snowflake timestamps count from here, not the Unix epoch.