Shopify Liquid Date Format Builder

Pick a date style visually and get the exact date filter string, with a live preview.

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Style

Add the time

Liquid date value

Any Liquid date object: product.created_at, order.created_at, customer.created_at, or "now".

Liquid

{{ article.published_at | date: "%B %d, %Y" }}

The date filter uses standard strftime tokens (from Ruby, which powers Liquid), so %-d style flags that drop a leading zero work on Shopify's servers even though they aren't in Shopify's own docs. Test them on your store before relying on one.

Live preview

The date filter

Liquid's date filter takes a strftime-style format string: {{ article.published_at | date: "%B %d, %Y" }}. It works on any Liquid date, like article.published_at, product.created_at, order.created_at, customer.created_at, or the literal string "now".

Token	Meaning	Example
%Y / %y	4-digit / 2-digit year	2026 / 26
%B / %b	Full / short month name	September / Sep
%m	Month, zero-padded	09
%d / %e	Day, zero-padded / not padded	05 / 5
%A / %a	Full / short weekday name	Wednesday / Wed
%H / %I	Hour, 24h / 12h	14 / 02
%M	Minutes	30
%p	am/pm	pm

Default settings

Style: US long
Value: article.published_at

Questions people ask

Can I show a relative date, like "3 days ago"?

Not with the date filter alone. That needs JavaScript comparing the timestamp to the current time on page load, since Liquid renders once, server-side, at cache time.

What time zone does this use?

Shopify formats dates in your store's time zone (Settings → General → Store defaults), so the date filter's output already matches what your customers expect without extra conversion.

Can I drop the leading zero, like "Sep 5" instead of "Sep 05"?

Ruby's strftime (which powers Liquid's date filter) supports a %-d style flag on most servers to drop the leading zero, even though Shopify doesn't document it. Test it on your store before relying on it, since it isn't official.

Where do I paste the result?

Anywhere a date shows in your theme: a blog post's byline in article.liquid, an order date in a notification template, or a countdown's static label.

Last reviewed 30 September 2026.

Sources: Shopify.dev: the metafield object in Liquid