What it does
The Date Formatter shows a date in every common format at once: ISO 8601, RFC 2822 (email), RFC 7231 (HTTP headers), Unix seconds and milliseconds, SQL datetime, relative time and local long and short formats in many languages. You can also build your own format with a pattern.
How to use it
- Choose the time zone to show the date in (your own by default).
- Type a date in almost any form:
2026-10-21 14:30,2026-10-21T09:00:00Z,Wed, 21 Oct 2026, a Unix timestamp, ornow. - Copy the format you need.
- Choose a language for the local formats.
- For anything else, type a Custom pattern such as
dddd, Do MMMM YYYY [at] h:mm A.
Example
2026-10-21 14:30 with the time zone set to UTC:
| Format | Result |
|---|---|
| ISO 8601 (UTC) | 2026-10-21T14:30:00.000Z |
| RFC 2822 / email | Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:30:00 +0000 |
| Unix seconds | 1792593000 |
| SQL datetime | 2026-10-21 14:30:00 |
Custom dddd, Do MMMM YYYY |
Wednesday, 21st October 2026 |
Pattern tokens
| Token | Output |
|---|---|
YYYY / YY |
2026 / 26 |
MMMM / MMM / MM |
October / Oct / 10 |
DD / Do |
21 / 21st |
dddd / ddd |
Wednesday / Wed |
HH / h / A |
14 / 2 / PM |
mm / ss |
minutes / seconds |
[text] |
text as written |
Good to know
2026-10-21alone is read as a date in your local time zone. AddZor an offset such as+05:00to be exact.- ISO 8601 is the safest format for data and APIs, because it sorts correctly and is not ambiguous.
- 03/04/2026 is 3 April in the UK but March 4 in the US. Avoid numeric day/month formats for international audiences.
FAQ
Which format should an API use?
ISO 8601 in UTC, for example 2026-10-21T14:30:00Z.
How do I count the days between two dates? Use the Date Calculator.