How to get date in BAT file

You get and format like this

for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%i in ("%date%") do (
     set dow=%%i
     set month=%%j
     set day=%%k
     set year=%%l
)
set datestr=%month%_%day%_%year%
echo datestr is %datestr%

Note: Above only works on US locale. It assumes the output of echo %date% looks like this: Thu 02/13/21. If you have different Windows locale settings, you will need to modify the script based on your configuration.


Locale-independent one liner to get any date format you like. I use it to generate archive names. Back quote (`) option is needed because PowerShell command line is using single quotes (').

:: Get date in 'yyyyMMdd_HHmm' format to use with file name.
FOR /f "usebackq" %%i IN (`PowerShell ^(Get-Date^).ToString^('yyyyMMdd_HHmm'^)`) DO SET DTime=%%i

:: Get yesterday date in 'yyyy-MM-dd' format.
FOR /f "usebackq" %%i IN (`PowerShell ^(Get-Date^).AddDays^(-1^).ToString^('yyyy-MM-dd'^)`) DO SET DTime=%%i

:: Show file name with the date.
echo Archive.%DTime%.zip

%date% will give you the date.

%time% will give you the time.

The date and time /t commands may give you more detail.


This will give you DD MM YYYY YY HH Min Sec variables and works on any Windows machine from XP Pro and later.

@echo off
for /f "tokens=2 delims==" %%a in ('wmic OS Get localdatetime /value') do set "dt=%%a"
set "YY=%dt:~2,2%" & set "YYYY=%dt:~0,4%" & set "MM=%dt:~4,2%" & set "DD=%dt:~6,2%"
set "HH=%dt:~8,2%" & set "Min=%dt:~10,2%" & set "Sec=%dt:~12,2%"

set "datestamp=%YYYY%%MM%%DD%" & set "timestamp=%HH%%Min%%Sec%"
set "fullstamp=%YYYY%-%MM%-%DD%_%HH%-%Min%-%Sec%"
echo datestamp: "%datestamp%"
echo timestamp: "%timestamp%"
echo fullstamp: "%fullstamp%"
pause