This time calculator adds or subtracts times provided in any combination of days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Upon adding or subtracting the two times, the calculator will provide the answer in all of the applicable formats listed below (if, for example, the calculated time is less than a week, the calculator will not provide the answer in the format that includes weeks because "weeks" would be "0"):
- Weeks + Days + Hours + Minutes + Seconds
- Days + Hours + Minutes + Seconds
- Hours + Minutes + Seconds
- Minutes + Seconds
- Seconds
Adding and Subtracting Time
There are a few different ways that you can add or subtract time but the best (probably) way to do it, which is also the way this time calculator does it, is as follows:
- Convert each of the two times that you are adding or subtracting to a "seconds only" amount. For example, let's say that you're adding the following two times together:
- TIME 1: 15 hours, 34 minutes, 41 seconds
- TIME 2: 8 hours, 19 minutes, 12 seconds
TIME 1 can be converted to 56,081 seconds, as follows:
- 15 hours x 3600 seconds / hour = 54,000 seconds, plus
- 34 minutes x 60 seconds / minute = 2,040 seconds, plus
- 41 seconds
- = 56,081 seconds total
TIME 2 can be converted to 29,952 seconds using the same method.
- Now that you've got both your times converted to "seconds only," add or subtract them. Continuing to use the example above, we can add TIME 1 and TIME 2 as follows:
- TIME 1 + TIME 2 = 56,081 seconds + 29,952 seconds = 86,033 seconds
- Okay, now that you've got your answer in "seconds only," it's time to convert the "seconds only" value to units that make a bit more sense. So, how do we do that? Well, it depends on what units you want to convert your answer to. Continuing with our example from above, let's suppose you want to get your answer in hours, minutes, and seconds. Here's how you would do it:
- Take the total number of seconds and divide it by the number of seconds in an hour (i.e. 3600). So, using our example, 86,033 seconds / 3600 seconds per hour = 23.9 hours (approximately).
- Okay, so 86,033 seconds converts to 23.9 hours. But we want to give our answer in hours, minutes, and seconds, not just hours, so we can keep the 23 as the "hours" part of our answer, and now need to convert the remaining amount of seconds (i.e the approximately 0.9 hours) to minutes and seconds.
- But how many seconds do we actually have remaining that need to be converted to minutes and seconds? Well, we started with 86,033 seconds total, and have figured out that we can get 23 full hours out of those seconds. That means that 23 hours x 3600 seconds / hour = 82,800 seconds are accounted for, and we need to convert the remaining 86,033 - 82,800 = 3,233 seconds to minutes and seconds.
- To find out how many minutes are in 3,233 seconds, we need to divide 3,233 by the number of seconds in a minute (i.e. 60). So, 3,233 seconds / 60 seconds per minute = 53.9 minutes (approximately).
- Similar to what we did when figuring out the number of hours, we need to keep the whole number part of our "minutes" answer and convert the remainder to seconds. So, we've established that there are 53 full minutes in 3,233 seconds, which means that 53 minutes x 60 seconds / minute = 3,180 seconds are accounted for, and we have 3,233 - 3,180 = 53 seconds remaining. So, 3,233 seconds works out to 53 minutes and 53 seconds.
- Putting it all together, we've now established that TIME 1 + TIME 2 = 86,033 seconds, which can be converted to 23 hours, 53 minutes, and 53 seconds. There's your answer!
Phew! That's tough to explain, but not so difficult to do once you've tried it a few times. Enjoy the time calculator! I hope you find it helpful.