Comments on: How to change date format in Excel and create custom formatting

The first part of our tutorial focuses of formatting dates in Excel and explains how to set the default date and time formats, how to change date format in Excel, how to create custom date formatting, and convert your dates to another locale. Continue reading →

Comments page 5. Total comments: 936

  1. Hi Alexander,

    I am getting error value with DATEVALUE(06/12/2022). Can you please suggest me.

    Thanks

  2. How do I change this format mmddyyy to this format ddmmyyyy?

  3. I want to change this format 02.11.2022
    into 2022-11-02

    1. =DTAE(RIGHT(A1,4),MID(A1,4,2),LEFT(A1,2))

  4. Dear Team
    How can I convert following time format through a formula 3 hr. 21 min. into 3:21 format.
    Thanks in advance

      1. IT IS WORKING VERY WELL,
        THANKS A LOT

  5. Hi guys, is it possible to change date and time format to days?
    e.g.

    from:
    25/10/2022 0:00
    to:
    Day 1

    and

    from:
    26/10/2022 0:00
    to:
    Day 2

    Thanks

  6. Hey Alexander! Thank you for all the nice reply for people! I am Sure you do a lot of good!

    I have a problem when trying to import CSV into excel as numbers that are displayed is not the same as in the console. This is an issue as I need the number-value, but the console shows a long-date with clock aswell.

    For an example:
    Value: Console:
    880 is 05/02/1900 16.00.00
    1077 is 13/02/1900 21.00.00
    1104 is 15/02/1900 00.00.00
    2000 is 23/03/1900 08.00.00
    Etc. Etc.

    I want to get the values and stop it from avoiding giving me what's in the console. What is the issue here excactly and how do I bypass this? I tried with a xlookup, datevalue and so forth, but nothing works! It is like the numbers printed are belived to be long-date format with time. I need the Value-data as shown above, and I need some kind of formular who can convert the console-values displayed to the right above, to the values displayed to the left above.

    Appreciate your help!

  7. How about converting this date format (when pasting from another spreadsheet) - 2022-04-13 09:58:14
    I would like it to simply be short date mm/dd/yyyy, no matter how I format the cells before I paste, I always get this silly format. I don't want to have to use text to columns every time. Is it possible? It is this format in like 3 columns worth of data for all my lines. I need to be able to update this report swiftly.

  8. Dear sir

    convert date format from 29/07/1979 to date format 10.11.2021

  9. Hi Sir,
    Need your help to provide me a formula to change below date & time which is combined as number

    20220804090848 (yyyymmddHHmmss)

    I need it as, dd/mm/yyyy HH:mm:ss

    Thanks.

  10. how to change whole culom with 22/09/2022 00:00 to 09/09/2022 in excel please?

  11. Hi i have text format like this 2007-May-24 00:00:0000. How can i convert this into date and time format as this 24-05-07 00:00 ? Please help

  12. Hi! Newer to excel and need help to save time please!
    In one column I've entered times (about 500+rows) like this: 2105 (as in 21:05). Unfortunately, at the time creating the sheet, I did not have the knowledge or wherewithal to change the format of the column to the 24 hr format (hh:mm) and I only kept it in plain number format. So, my problem is I don't want to go and correct all 500+ entries individually. Is there a formula I can use to switch 2105 to 21:05 (plain number format to time format)?? Please? Help?

      1. Thank you!

  13. Hi, I have a CSV file containing a column with IDs formatted as [1-1-1234] but Excel keeps changing it to the date format [m/d/yyyy]. I'm not able to import my data unless they're done with the dashes (-).

    I've done the custom format to change it to [m-d-yyyy] but since it's a CSV file it doesn't save the formatting. Is there a way to change/create the default date format to have dashes (-) instead of slashes (/)?

    Thank you!

    1. Hello!
      Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above – How to change the default date and time formats in Excel. Change the date format as you need in the Region and Language panel.

  14. 22//06//2022 10:52 PM
    I want change the format of Above like 22//06//2022 21:52

    1. Hi!
      Please re-check the article above since it covers your case. Remove from time format symbols AM/PM. You can learn more about time format in Excel in this article on our blog.

  15. I looked through all of your examples several times so I am sorry if I missed the answer to my question....I am trying to change the date to 09-07-2001 from 09/07/2001. I need the mm-dd-yyyy format created but everything I am finding puts it dd/mm/yyyy

    Thanks for your help

    1. Hi!
      Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above - Creating a custom date format in Excel. Write the date format you want in the Type box.

  16. I am trying to convert these numbers 154975.4857, & 145454.2432 from a csv file to minutes and seconds.

  17. I have date written in the format 20181019 and i need to re-write them using slash, that is 2018/10/19.
    Approximately there are 20k of these dates i need to change. How can i do this. Thanks

  18. Hii
    I have multiple dates like 15/03/2020 in a SINGLE CELL but i want to change the date format as 2020-03-15
    Note:- in a single cell multiple dates to be change!!

    1. Hi!
      If several dates are written in one cell, then this is text, not dates. You cannot change their format using formatting.

  19. Hi, I've got exported data into excel and unfortunately they have the date in this text format "May 17, 2022" in the D column, and while I've been through the comments I can't find anything that converts this into a date. What would you recommend?

    Thanks

      1. Thank you for replying. Unfortunately this returns a #VALUE

        1. Hi!
          Perhaps the problem is in the regional settings of your Windows. Try this formula

          =DATE(RIGHT(D1,4),VLOOKUP(LEFT(D1,3), {"JAN",1;"FEB",2;"MAR",3;"APR",4;"May",5;"JUN",6;"JUL",7;"AUG",8;"Sep",9;"OCT",10;"NOV",11;"DEC",12},2,0),MID(D1,5,2))

          You can also analyze more than 500 combinations representing dates in text format and convert them to regular Excel dates using Convert Text to Date tool. It is available as a part of our Ultimate Suite for Excel that you can install in a trial mode and check how it works for free.

  20. Hi there,

    I have hundreds of dates in a column. In this column, some dates are dd/mm/yyyy and some are mm/dd/yyyy. I am from New Zealand and require the dd/mm/yyyy format. I have tried to change the format settings of the entire column to do this.

    At first, some rows were set as Armenian, and some set as English. After setting them all to English, the problem is still happening. I tried to read through most of your advice and comment replies but I got a wee bit confused and thought it best to just ask!

    1. Hello!
      Some of your dates are written as text. This text should be converted to a date. Set the cells to the desired date format and use the formula:

      =IF(ISTEXT(A1),DATE(RIGHT(A1,4),LEFT(A1,SEARCH("/",A1)-1),MID(A1,SEARCH("/",A1)+1,SEARCH("/",A1,4)-SEARCH("/",A1)-1)),A1)

      I recommend reading this guide: How to convert text to date in Excel

  21. My hundreds of dates are entered with an abbreviation at the end of the day i.e. 22nd March 2022 and it hasn't accepted any of the normal ways of changing the format to 22/03/2022 - I know the 'nd' is causing the problem but can't figure my way around it - any help?

    1. Hello!
      Remove extra characters from text and convert to date using DATEVALUE function:

      =DATEVALUE(LEFT(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1)-3)&MID(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1),30))

      Set the date format you need in the cell as described in the article above.

      1. Thank you SOOOOO MUCH it worked a treat and has saved me so much time :)

  22. Difference between two dates with time to collect time difference between two dates for example Wed Apr 20 17:56:16 IST 2022 & Wed Apr 20 17:53:43 IST 2022 Please give answer with formula not manually because I have 30000 entries for work. Please help if any

  23. Excel stopped recognizing the Spanish date formats, it was working from January til March then it just stopped working during April.

    Example:
    Using VLOOKUP and 01 abr. as a reference, it doesn't count "01 abr" from the raw data.

    This worked from Jan to Mar using the same "everything". I just changed the month.

  24. Insanely simple, thank you

  25. I want to input 20032022 then excel will convert it to 20-Mar-2022. what is the custom format for that?

  26. how can Jan-2021 be read as January 2021 instead of being a text

    1. Hi!
      If I understand you correctly, use a custom date format as described in the article above -

      mmmm yyyy

  27. how to change 02.01.2022 to 02/01/2022?

  28. Monday, February 21, 2022
    CONVERT IN 02-21-2022
    FORMULA USING TEXT(RIGHT(N1044,LEN(N1044)-FIND(",",N1044)-1),"mm-dd-yyyy")
    BUT AFTER RESULT February 21, 2022
    I NEED CONVERT IN 02-21-2022

  29. I have date in format Feb-21, Mar-21 & so on till Jan-22. While converting this to year I am not able to do that, I am using formula Year it shows me a result 2022 for 2021 as well. Also, I am not able to convert it to date. Please help.

    1. Hello!
      Look closely at what date format is set in the cell. To do this, press CTRL+1. I think your date format is "mmm-dd".
      Feb-21 means 21 February 2022.

  30. Hi, I use mmmm or dddd and I get always fmonth or day names in small letters, but I would like that first letter is big just like Thursday but i get thursday. I use estonian language and may bet that is reason why all letters.

    1. Hello!
      Pay attention to what custom date format is set in this cell. If there is something like
      [$-F419]dddd, d mmmm yyyy
      then delete the regional settings [$-F419].
      I hope it’ll be helpful. If something is still unclear, please feel free to ask.

      1. Hello! and thank you for your replay but my problem are that all months and days of the week are in lower case (small letter). I put 1.04.2022 and Format Cells>NUmber>Custom I put mmmm because I would like to see only month or some other place weekday and result always I get april or monday not what i want April or Monday . I would like to see that first letter is big /upper. If I use formula =upper(a1) then all letters will be APRIL but I want that first letter is only upper

        2. That formula and 1.04.2022 will be Aprill

          =UPPER(LEFT(TEXT(A1;"mmmm");1))&""&LOWER(RIGHT(TEXT(A1;"mmmm");LEN(TEXT(A1;"mmmm"))-1))

          but is there a simpler method

  31. Is there a way to save custom formatting to a named option in the Date list

  32. Hello, I need to change a bunch of dates formatted like this: 2021-10-02, 1:47:40 PST
    to 10/02/2021. What formula can I use? Thanks.

  33. So i have a question if my date format reads as 01/02/2022 = Jan 2,2022 which is wrong because the month should be February is the a formular to correct such ?

  34. Hi - thank you for this very nice article :-)

    I am puzzled by this observation in my company: If I create a new workbook and enter in the same date (I type it in as "dd/mm") in three different cells and then;
    1: do nothing
    2: specify a custom format "dd-mm-yyyy" (typical Danish format)
    3: specify a custom format "mm/dd/yyyy" (typical US format)

    Then my first question is: why does the first cell display as "dd-mmm"? Or rather - why is the default cell format for date entries a custom format of "dd-mmm". Shouldn't it rather be the deafult Windows regional settings format ? If I want to change it, so going forward then my new spreadsheets just use the default Windows format - how can I do that.

    Secondly : when I send this spreadsheet by e-mail to a colleague in the US, then the date in the second cell (Danish format) is changed so it appears the same as in cell 3 (the US format). If I go to the trouble of enforcing a specific / custom format, then I would have assumed that this would be respected, even if it is send to another Excel user. Why is this not the case and is there anything I can do to enforce a particular date format, without having to actually enter in dates as text (or use formuals and stuff)?

    Br,
    Kim

    1. First questions:
      "Shouldn't it rather be the deafult Windows regional settings format?"
      There is no date format in windows regional settings, OOXML standard nor ISO 8601 formats without the year specified, so it seems to be a free interpretation/guess from excel where it transforms it to a date (with current year) but display just the information provided. I didn't fint documentation about it.

      "... how can I do that."
      If you add the year (at least yy) to the date, then it generally autoformats to your short date format regional setting. I didn't find a way for auto-transforming dd/mm to short date regional format though.

      Second questions:
      "... is there anything I can do to enforce a particular date format?"
      Add ";@" at the end, for example: "dd-mm-yyyy;@"

      "¿Why is this not the case...?"
      There is a list of number formats which their corresponding format code can change depending on the format settings of your operative system. Some, but not all, of these format codes are the ones with * mentioned in this article as Default date format; and "dd-mm-yyyy" with your regional settings is another one.
      When you use a format code that matches one of these format codes, excel saves its Id (numFmtId) but not the actual formatCode that your excel is displaying. So, when reading the file with another regional settings, excel could interpret it with a different formatCode.
      If your regional setting for short date is "dd-MM-yyyy" (default for Danish-Denmark), then the excel formatCode "dd-mm-yyyy" is associated with numFmtId 14 and it saves just that Id. When your friend opens the file, excel would interpret the numFmtId 14 according to his format settings (which should be m/d/yyyy for English-USA).

      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/documentformat.openxml.spreadsheet.numberingformat

  35. Pls am having a problem with a date column. Some entries are showing datetime including PM and AM while others only show dates, but when I click on them it appears as both the date, time and PM on the formula tab. Pls how can i display just the dates. I don't need the time nor the PM or AM

  36. Hi,

    I want to update the format of ONLY date values from particular column which has all types of data values.

    Thanks,
    Riyaz

  37. I am past some 1-2,2-4...like this it will show 1-feb-2021,2-Apr-2021 how can slove entire cell one time pls give mee reply

  38. Hi
    I find a way to convert Gregorian date to another (e.g. persian calender) format, but what about if I want to convert persian calender into Gregorian (or other formats)??

  39. Hello, I am going crazy here... I am using Excel in a MacBook Pro, version 16.56. My problem is the following: I have a data table where in the first column I register a list of dates by the exact day when a sale has occurred and in the next column I register the amount of that sale. Now I want to create a bar chart that groups all these dates into months to show me the 12 totals of the monthly sales throughout the year, where the x-axis is the 12 months of the year, and the y-axis is the amount of the sales. Now, once I want to label the bar charts, instead of getting the total sales amount for a specific month, I get a label for each date of each sale. Basically the bar is composed of many bars stacked one on top of the other for each date, instead of being just the sum of the sales for that specific months as it should be. The result is I cannot get a label with the total monthly sales amount, by I get numerous labels inside the monthly bar chart labelling the amount of the sale for each date where that sale has occurred. Please somebody help me!

      1. Thank you, ok understood, I feared that, although it surprises me such a task is not performed by excel without having to do extra work to group the sales by month as well ;(

  40. dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm i want this date format in my all workbooks.. is there any way to set his globally ?

    1. Hello!
      The short and long date formats are retrieved from Windows Regional Settings. Open Windows Settings - Time & Language - Region - Change Data formats

  41. How would I go about formatting a column that has the information in years as dates. Since it is currently in the general number format I am unable to insert a timeline slicer. I have tried using the custom yyyy date but it converts all the dates to 1905

  42. How to keep the same format date of excel in CSV file?
    Because, when I converting a file from excel to CSV format. I noted some of the dates have changed from MM/DD/YYYY into DD/MM/YYYY. I wanted to keep the same data as MM/DD/YYYY.
    Appreciate your help. Thank you

    1. Hello!
      CSV is a plain text file. No formats are possible there. Try changing the system date format before converting.

  43. Hi! Could you please help us on how will we able to change the format from this day "Thu Oct 28 09:42:08 PDT 2021" to "MM/DD/YYYY" format only

    Appreciate your help!

    1. Hello!
      All recommendations on how to change the date format are described above in this article. If your date is written as text, then I recommend this guide: Convert text to date in Excel.
      Please try the following formula:

      =DATEVALUE(MONTH(1&MID(A1,5,3))&"-"&MID(A1,9,2)&"-"&RIGHT(A1,4))

  44. I could get what I want by dividing 365.25 by 12 then dividing the difference of the dates by the result of the division. Any other better way?

      1. I have an issue to replace date of day to start day of every date "Example" 19/4/2021 - 24/1/2021 - 27/8/2021 need to be change date of every example to be 1/4/2021 - 1/1/2021 - 1/8/2021 " is there any formula please to change the day of the date?

        Thanks for your support

  45. Hello, Please help,
    I want to calculate age in months and not in years between two dates, for example 15/01/2020 23/11/2021 1.86 years =(B1-A1)/365.25, this formula is used to calculate age in years. But I want the age to be in months and with two decimal places.

  46. I have some dates in this format. 13-01-1992. I want to be able to change to yyyy-mm-dd format in excel. I have tried changing from the format cells/custom format. but it does not seem to change. is there any formula you might know that can change ?
    thanks in advance

    1. Hello!
      I'm assuming your dates are written as text. Use these guidelines to convert this text to a date.
      I hope I answered your question. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

  47. I have been able to pull the day (as text) from a date in another field (ex: 27 from 27 Sep 21) using TEXT(DAY(cell),"00").
    However, for my application, I would also like to be able to add another number to the day portion for scheduling purposes. For example, a single schedule for 27 Sep 21 would show as "727", but I would like to add 30 or 60 to show other scheduled activity for that day (to be shown as "757" and "787" respectively).
    What is the best way to accomplish this?
    The original formula is: If(MONTH(A36)=9,"7"&TEXT(DAY(A36),"00"),"")

    1. Hello!
      You can simply add 30 to your formula.

      =IF(MONTH(A36)=9,"7"&TEXT(DAY(A36),"00"),"")+30

      If the result is as text -

      =(IF(MONTH(A36)=9,"7"&TEXT(DAY(A36),"00"),"")+30)&""

      Hope this is what you need.

  48. one cell Take 7 Numeric Value For example (1112021). How to change Date formate.
    but which date is correct its (01-11-2021) or (11-01-2021) ?

    Pls Kindly send formula.....

  49. Hi sir,

    need your support to change the date format as below pasted date format not correct and not complete.

    09/17/21 15:53:42

    i want like 17/09-2021 15:53:42

    1. Hi!
      I hope you have studied the recommendations in the tutorial above. Replace in date format symbol / on -.

  50. Hi, How to convert 01-JUN-18 12.25.13.031000000 AM into 00:25:13 as the string is in AM. Also, how I convert the same string to time format in PM i.e. 12:25:13. Can someone help me with a formula with AM and PM?

    1. Hi!
      If I understand your task correctly, the following formula should work for you:

      =LEFT(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)) + SUBSTITUTE(LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(MID(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)+1,100),".","#",3), SEARCH("#",SUBSTITUTE(MID(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)+1,100),".","#",3),1)-1) & RIGHT(A2,3),".",":")

      1. I will try the formula and update. Thanks Already.

        1. Hi Alex,

          I applied the formula. It gives correct time. But when I compare to 12:25:10 AM i.e. 01-JUN-18 12.25.10.031000000 AM it gives a difference of 23:59:57 which is too huge difference to consider.

          I tried with another formula before:

          =(SUBSTITUTE(MID(A2,11,8),”.”,”:”)+IF(AND(MID(A2,11,2)”12”,RIGHT (A2,2)=“PM”),0.5,0))+TIME (4,0,0)

          The difference from other timestamps are good. Like for above example, I get 00:00:03.

          Only, issue is with the formula is, it doesn’t identify 12:00:00 AM as 00:00:00 but identifies 12:00:00 PM as 12:00:00.so, I requested for a suggestion. Any update on the details would be helpful. Thanks already.

          1. Hello!
            12:00 am and 12:00 pm are shown differently in different countries. Excel defines 12:00:00 PM as 12:00:00 according to the international standard ISO 8601.

            1. I am trying to find difference between

              21-08-24 03:02:54 and 24-AUG-21 03.00.47.059641000AM. I have added time(4,0,0).

              I converted as 7:02:54 AM and 7:00:47 AM. When I subtract as per the above formula, it gives a difference of 23:57:53.

              When I convert the timestamps to number, it is 0.29 and 44432.29. I believe, the second number is counting the date also, that’s why making difference too huge. How can I resolve this? As difference should show as 0:02:07. Please suggest.

              1. Thank you for the time and effort Alex.

              2. To convert the 24-AUG-21 03.00.47.059641000AM, I have applied
                =LEFT(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)) + SUBSTITUTE(LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(MID(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)+1,100),".","#",3), SEARCH("#",SUBSTITUTE(MID(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)+1,100),".","#",3),1)-1) & RIGHT(A2,3),".",":")

                Then for difference, I have applied =MAX(A2::B2)-MIN(A2:B2)

                Some, results for other timestamps are correct but some shows huge difference like above. How I can rectify this issue?

              3. Hi!
                If the formula shows the correct result for some data, then the formula is correct. I think that in some cells the data is written differently. Therefore, the result is wrong. Check the data. I can't help you anymore.

              4. No, both are 24 aug 2021. It’s just formats are different. I am subtracting 07:02:54 - 07:00:47.

              6. Hi!
                Explain what you are subtracting and what formula you are using. You cannot subtract 7:02:54 AM from 7:00:47 AM. Negative times are not possible. If from date 8/24/2021 3:00:47 subtract 8/21/2024 3:02:54 we get 2 days 23:57:53

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