If you’ve ever wanted to use a custom date format in Shortcuts, you will have seen that you need to use the patterns documented in the (rather intimidating) Unicode Technical Standards #35 .
I’ve laid out a simpler cheat-sheet version of common patterns you may want to use below. You can also download this PDF version for offline viewing.
DATES
| Symbol | Example | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week Days | E | Tue | |
| EEEE | Tuesday | ||
| EEEEE | T | ||
| EEEEEE | Tu | ||
| Day Of Week | e | 2 | Start of week according to local calendar |
| c | 2 | Monday as start of week | |
| Day Of Month | d | 1 | |
| Day Of Year | D | 342 | |
| Week Of Year | w | 27 | |
| Day Of Week In Month | F | 2 | 2nd Wed in July |
| Week Of Month | W | 3 | |
| Month | M | 09 | |
| MMM | Sept | ||
| MMMM | September | ||
| MMMMM | S | ||
| Year | y | 2019 | |
| yy | 19 | ||
| Quarter | Q | 02 | |
| QQQ | Q2 | ||
| QQQQ | 2nd Quarter |
TIMES
| Symbol | Example | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Period | a | AM | AM or PM |
| Hours | h | 9 | 12-hour clock |
| hh | 09 | ||
| H | 21 | 24-hour clock | |
| HH | 21 | ||
| Minutes | m | 6 | |
| mm | 06 | ||
| Seconds | s | 8 | |
| ss | 08 | ||
| Fractional Seconds | S | 3 | Example is rounded fraction after the decimal point (3.247 seconds) |
| SS | 35 | ||
| SSS | 347 | ||
| Time Zones | z | BST | Specific non-location format |
| zzzz | British Summer Time | ||
| Z | +0100 | Localised format | |
| ZZZZ | GMT+01:00 | ||
| ZZZZZ | +01:00 | ||
| O | GMT+1 | ||
| OOOO | GMT+01:00 | ||
| v | PDT | Generic non-location format | |
| vvvv | Pacific Daylight Time | ||
| V | gblon | Timezone ID (short) | |
| VV | Europe/London | Timezone ID (long) | |
| VVV | London | Exemplar City | |
| VVVV | United Kingdom Time | Generic location format |