How to Add Minutes and Seconds in Excel (3 Easy Methods)

Excel is the most widely used tool for dealing with massive datasets. We can perform myriads of tasks of multiple dimensions in Excel. Sometimes, while working in Excel, we need to add times. We can easily do that in Excel. In this article, I will show you 3 easy methods for how to add minutes and seconds in Excel.

How to Add Minutes and Seconds in Excel: 3 Suitable Methods

This is the dataset for today’s articles. There are some times. I will add minutes and seconds to these times.

1. Add Minutes and Seconds Manually in Excel

First of all, I will show how to add minutes and seconds manually in Excel. For this method, we will use some relations.

1 Day = 24 Hours = (24*60) or 1440 Minutes = (24*60*60) or 86400 Seconds

Now, let’s add minutes and seconds manually step by step.

Steps:

Go to E5 and write down the following formula

=B5+C5/1440+D5/86400

Then, press ENTER to get the output.

After that, use Fill Handle to AutoFill up to E11.

2. Use TIME Function to Add Minutes and Seconds

Now, I will show another method. This time, I will use the TIME function to add minutes and seconds.

Steps:

Go to E5 and write down the following formula

=B5+TIME(0,C5,D5)

Formula Explanation:

TIME(0,C5,D5) indicates that I am adding 0 hours, 32 minutes, and 17 seconds to the time in B5 (9:40:55 AM)
The output is 10:13:12 AM.

Now, press ENTER to get the output.

After that, use Fill Handle to AutoFill up to E11.

3. Apply MOD Function to Add Minutes and Seconds in Excel

In this method, I will show you how to add times using the MOD function. This function returns the remainder after dividing a number with a divisor. We can use this function to add times in Excel. Let’s do it step by step.

Steps:

Go to E5 and write down the following formula

=MOD(B5+C5/1440+D5/86400,1)

After that, press ENTER to get the output.

Now, use Fill Handle to AutoFill up to E11.

Advantage of MOD Function:

The MOD function is the best function to use for adding minutes and numbers. It includes all sorts of calculations in the process.

You can add negative numbers ( i.e. subtract minutes and seconds) in this method.

Another advantage is, that even if midnight is crossed, this function will give you the correct result in the case of subtracting times.

Things to Remember

Use Custom Format to format time as you wish.

Download Practice Workbook

Download this workbook and practice while going through the article.

Add Minutes and Seconds.xlsx

Conclusion

In this article, I have explained 3 easy methods for how to add minutes and seconds in Excel. I hope it helps everyone. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or feedback, please comment below.