Zapier Today’s Date

Confused about how to get today’s date in Zapier in the format you want? Well never fear I will show you how to quickly and easily get today’s date in any format that you want.

Zapier Today’s Date Walkthrough Video

Zapier Today’s Date Using Tokens

The first and easiest option for getting today’s date in Zapier is to use their default tokens which output the date and time in different ISO standards and for different timezones. Here are some examples:

• {{zap_meta_human_now}} outputs the time in the friendliest format for human consumption: MM/DD/YY hh:mmAM/PM e.g. 01/15/21 06:05PM
• {{zap_meta_cst_iso}} outputs the date and time in Central Daylight Time in ISO-8601 format
• {{zap_meta_timestamp}} outputs the UNIX date and time, which might be required by some apps

Formatting Today’s Date

If you want to change the format that one of the default tokens provides the date in (or if you want to format a date provided by a previous Zapier step) then you can use the “Formatter by Zapier” app and the “Date/ Time” event.

• Put the token for the current timestamp in the “Input” field
• Choose the output format you desire using the dropdown in the “To Format” field. You can use the “Date/Time custom value table” in this article if the format you want is not available in the dropdown menu.
• Choose the output timezone you desire using the dropdown in the “To Timezone” field (if not specified it will default to UTC time)
• If you know the format of the “Input” timestamp then you can specify the “From Format” field, however, it is probably best to let Zapier automatically detect the format by leaving this blank
• If no timezone information is specified in the input timestamp then you should specify the timezone in the “From Timezone” field (if not specified in the input timestamp and this “From Timezone” field is left empty it will default to UTC time)

Zapier Today’s Date Using Code & AI

The previous two sections will get you today’s date in Zapier in any format that you desire, however, I wanted to show one cool way using ChatGPT and a “Code by Zapier” action to get today’s date in any desired format.

1. Make the prompt to ChatGPT to get the Python code in the date you desire e.g. Please generate the Python code to get today's date in this format "16th July 2023"
2. Copy and paste the code into a “Code by Zapier” action using the “Run Python” event
3. The only addition needed to the code returned from ChatGPT is to paste this code output = {'date': formatted_date} at the bottom so that the formatted date will be accessible by the next Zap steps.

An alternative to using ChatGPT is using Zapier’s inbuilt “Generate with AI” button within the “Code by Zapier” action. However, based on my testing of this feature with the same prompt given to ChatGPT the code is not as succinct as ChatGPT. That being said it does give the correct output for today’s date so you can definitely use this option.

What’s After Zapier Today’s Date?

Now that you have got today’s date in Zapier well and truly ticked off you might be interested in learning some more Zapier fundamentals:

• Sub-Zap by Zapier Quick Start Guide
• Zapier For Each Loop Quick-Start Guide
• Zapier Google Sheets Quick-Start Guide