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Human Readable Dates
An Obsidian plugin that transforms dates into human-readable, relative formats (e.g., "Yesterday", "2 hours ago", "In 3 days") while preserving the original date strings in your notes. Only works in Live Preview mode with seamless cursor-based editing.
Usage
The plugin automatically detects and transforms dates in the user specified format.
Time Precision
The plugin shows different levels of precision based on how recent the date is:
- Within 5 minutes: "Now"
- 5-59 minutes: "15 mins ago", "30 mins ago", "In 20 mins"
- 1-23 hours: "2 hours ago", "5 hours ago", "In 8 hours"
- Days: "Yesterday", "Tomorrow", "3 days ago", "In 5 days"
- Weeks: "Last week", "Next week", "2 weeks ago"
- Months: "Last month", "Next month", "3 months ago"
- Years: "Last year", "Next year", "2 years ago"
Supported Tokens
Configure a date format in settings using standard Moment.js format tokens:
| Token | Meaning | Example output |
|---|---|---|
YYYY |
Year, 4 digits | 2026 |
YY |
Year, 2 digits | 26 |
M |
Month, 1-2 digits | 1, 12 |
MM |
Month, 2 digits | 01, 12 |
MMM |
Short month name | Jan, Dec |
MMMM |
Full month name | January, December |
D |
Day of month, 1-2 digits | 5, 25 |
DD |
Day of month, 2 digits | 05, 25 |
d |
Day of week, number (Sun=0) | 0-6 |
dd |
Weekday abbreviation, 2 chars | Su, Sa |
ddd |
Short weekday name | Mon, Sun |
dddd |
Full weekday name | Monday, Sunday |
H |
Hour (24h), 1-2 digits | 5, 23 |
HH |
Hour (24h), 2 digits | 05, 23 |
h |
Hour (12h), 1-2 digits | 5, 11 |
hh |
Hour (12h), 2 digits | 05, 11 |
m |
Minute, 1-2 digits | 5, 59 |
mm |
Minute, 2 digits | 05, 59 |
s |
Second, 1-2 digits | 5, 59 |
ss |
Second, 2 digits | 05, 59 |
SSS |
Fractional second, 3 digits | 123 |
A |
AM/PM (uppercase) | AM, PM |
a |
am/pm (lowercase) | am, pm |
Z |
Timezone offset with colon | +05:30 |
ZZ |
Timezone offset without colon | +0530 |
Use bracket literals for escaped text: [at] matches the literal word "at".
Non-token characters (spaces, hyphens, colons, slashes, etc.) are treated as literal separators.
Examples (default format: ddd MMM DD YYYY HH:mm)
| Original Date | Display |
|---|---|
Fri Aug 29 2025 14:55 (5 mins ago) |
5 mins ago |
Fri Aug 29 2025 12:00 (2 hours ago) |
2 hours ago |
Thu Aug 28 2025 (yesterday) |
Yesterday |
Sat Aug 30 2025 (tomorrow) |
Tomorrow |
[[Sun Aug 31 2025]] (in 2 days) |
In 2 days |
| `[[2025-08-31 | Sun Aug 31 2025]]` (aliased wikilink) |
Examples (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
| Original Date | Display |
|---|---|
2026-01-25 |
Relative label |
[[2026-01-25]] |
Clickable relative label |
Examples (custom formats)
| Format | Matches | Notes |
|---|---|---|
M/D/YYYY |
1/25/2026 | Compact US format |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss |
2026-01-25 14:30:00 | With seconds |
MMMM D, YYYY [at] h:mm A |
January 25, 2026 at 2:30 PM | With bracket literal |
DD-MMM-YY |
25-Jan-26 | Compact with month name |
Invalid dates such as 2026-02-31 are ignored and left as-is.
Editing
Simply move your cursor over any transformed date to reveal the original text for editing. The human-readable display will automatically return when you move the cursor away.
Settings
- Date format: Configure the date format to match your needs (default:
ddd MMM DD YYYY HH:mm). Uses standard Moment.js format tokens.
Installation
Manual installation
Unzip the latest release into your <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/ folder.
Requirements
- Obsidian v0.15.0+
- Live Preview mode
License
MIT License