{"id":11063,"date":"2024-03-14T13:19:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T13:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-timestamp-data-type-in-mysql\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T07:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:10:05","slug":"what-is-the-purpose-of-the-timestamp-data-type-in-mysql","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-timestamp-data-type-in-mysql\/","title":{"rendered":"MySQL Timestamp: Purpose, Range &#038; Auto-Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In MySQL, the timestamp type is used to store date and time information accurate to the second. Fields with the timestamp type will automatically update to the current date and time when records are inserted or updated. This type is commonly used to track the creation or last update time of data. Timestamp fields can be set to auto-update and can have a default value of the current time. The time range stored in timestamp fields is from January 1, 1970, 00:00:01, to January 19, 2038, 03:14:07. Timestamp fields occupy 4 bytes of storage space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In MySQL, the timestamp type is used to store date and time information accurate to the second. Fields with the timestamp type will automatically update to the current date and time when records are inserted or updated. This type is commonly used to track the creation or last update time of data. Timestamp fields can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14111,14110,14112,14088,8595],"class_list":["post-11063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-datetime-range","tag-mysql-auto-update","tag-mysql-time-tracking","tag-mysql-timestamp","tag-timestamp-data-type"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v21.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MySQL Timestamp: Purpose, Range &amp; Auto-Update - Blog - Silicon Cloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover MySQL timestamp data type purpose: auto-updating date\/time storage, 2038 range explained.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-timestamp-data-type-in-mysql\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MySQL Timestamp: Purpose, Range &amp; 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