Why is noon 12:00 PM and not 12:00 AM?

PM means "after noon," and noon itself (12:00 in 24-hour time) is the start of the PM half of the day, even though the hour number is 12, not 0.

Does this handle seconds?

No — this converts hour and minute only, the standard granularity for a 12-hour/24-hour time-format conversion.

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Military Time Converter

24-hour time to 12-hour AM/PM and back, both directions.

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About the Military Time Converter

Converts 24-hour (military) time to 12-hour AM/PM time, and back, handling the midnight and noon edge cases that are the most common source of bugs in this exact kind of tool.

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How to use it

Pick a direction: 24-hour to 12-hour, or 12-hour to 24-hour.
Enter the hour and minute (and AM/PM, if converting from 12-hour).
Read the converted time.

Formula

24-hour to 12-hour: hour mod 12, with 0 shown as 12; AM if the original hour is before 12, PM otherwise. 12-hour to 24-hour: hour mod 12, plus 12 if PM.

Worked example

13:00 converts to 1:00 PM. 00:00 converts to 12:00 AM. 12:00 PM converts back to 12:00 (not 24:00).

Interpreting your result

Midnight is 00:00 in 24-hour time but 12:00 AM in 12-hour time — not '0:00 AM'. Noon is 12:00 in both, but 12:00 PM, not '0:00 PM' — a genuinely common point of confusion this tool gets right in both directions.

Frequently asked questions

12-hour clocks never show a 0 — hour 0 in 24-hour time is displayed as 12 in 12-hour time, with AM since it's before noon.