To convert a time into minutes, multiply it by 1440 — the number of minutes in a day: =A1*1440. Excel stores time as a fraction of a day, so 6:30 is 0.27083 and multiplying scales it back to 390 minutes.
Format the result cell as General or Number, or it inherits the time format from the source and shows a time rather than a number.
The same formula works on a summed total, with one condition: the cell holding the sum must be formatted as [h]:mm, since a total over 24 hours wraps around otherwise and you’d be multiplying the wrapped value. For whole minutes only, wrap it in INT: =INT(A1*1440).
The alternative is =HOUR(A1)*60+MINUTE(A1), which reads more clearly but breaks past 24 hours because HOUR resets. To go the other way, divide by 1440 and format the cell as time.
To convert a time in Excel into minutes, you need to multiply that value by 1440. This is the total number of minutes that we have in a single day, and Excel stores time as decimals (1 is equivalent to 24 hours). Now when you multiply a time value by the 1440 minutes, it returns the number of minutes according to that time.
Formula to Convert Time to Minutes
You can use the below steps:
- First, enter the equal to operator.
- Next, refer to the cell where you have the time value.
- Now, enter the asterisk to multiply.
- After that, enter 1440.
- In the end, hit enter to get the result.
=A1*1440Once you enter the above formula in a cell you need to have the cell format as “General“, so that you can have the total minutes as a number in the cell.
Convert Total Time into Minutes
If you have a time value that is the total of multiple time values, you can still use this formula.
In cell A3, we have the sum and in cell A5, we have entered the same formula to get the total minutes from the time value.
Written by
Puneet Gogia
Microsoft MVP — Excel · Founder, Excel Champs
Twelve years of teaching Excel, and a decade before that using it as a data analyst. Every tutorial here is written from a file I actually built.