UUID generator · formatUUID v7 — generator and how it works

Version 7 starts with the creation time in milliseconds followed by 74 random bits. Values therefore sort in creation order and are appended to the end of an index — which made v7 the recommended primary key. It was standardised in RFC 9562 in 2024.

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01

Generator UUID v7

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02

How it is built: UUID v7

Sample017f22e2-79b0-7cc3-98c4-dc0c0c07398f
017f22e2-79b0
Unix time in ms: 22 Feb 2022 19:22:22 UTC
7
version: always 7
cc3
12 bits rand_a — random or a counter
9
RFC variant and the first 2 bits of rand_b
8c4-dc0c0c07398f
60 more bits of rand_b — random

When to use it

  • The primary key of a large table: inserts go to the end of the index and pages do not fragment.
  • IDs for events and logs that are handy to sort by the ID itself.
  • A replacement for v1 and v6 when you want time inside but not the machine address.

How it differs from its neighbours

Against v4: v7 is ordered and kind to indexes, but it reveals the creation moment to the millisecond, which may be too much for public links. Against ULID: both sort by time and are built almost alike (48 bits of time first), but v7 is an RFC standard and fits a uuid column, while ULID is shorter to write — 26 characters instead of 36. Our generator is monotonic within a batch: inside one millisecond the random part grows by one.

03

Format comparison

FormatLengthRandomnessTime insideSortableStandard
UUID v436122 bitsnonoRFC 9562
UUID v73674 bitsms, 48 bitsyesRFC 9562
UUID v136node and counter100 ns, 60 bitsnoRFC 9562, legacy
Nil UUID36noneno—RFC 9562
NanoID21126 bitsnonoa library, not an RFC
ULID2680 bitsms, 48 bitsyesULID spec, not an RFC
04

Frequently asked questions

The first twelve hexadecimal digits, ignoring the hyphen, are Unix time in milliseconds. Convert them to decimal and you have the moment of creation: 017f22e279b0 is 22 February 2022, 19:22:22 UTC. The Check field on the generator page does it for you and shows the date, the time and how many days have passed since the identifier was created.

Updated

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