How to Add Date and Time Manually in Google Sheets

Note :

• No matter how you want the time to look like at the end, you should always enter it with a colon. This is essential for Google Sheets to distinguish between time and numbers.
• By defaults Google Sheets follows the 24-hour format .
• This is the simplest way to insert date and time into your Google Sheets .

Step 1: Open Google Sheets and Select Cell

Open your Google Sheets and select the cell where you want to add the date/time.

Step 2: Enter the date or time in the cell

Type the time in HH:MM:SS format or the date in DD/MM/YYYY format.

Note :

• Depending on whether you want to represent a clock time or an amount of time , you should use the Time or Duration format, respectively.
• As you all know, the American date format differs from the European one. If you set “United States” as your locale and type in the date in the European format: dd/mm/yyyy, it simply won’t work. The entered date will be treated as a textual value. So, pay attention to that.

Time Format

Google Sheets features different time formats so that you can select one of your choices from hours, minutes, and seconds. To set the time format, select the relevant cells and go to Format > Number>Time.
 

Duration Format

To set the duration format, select the relevant cells and go to Format > Number > Duration.
 

When working with the duration format, Google Sheets understands integers as days. In other words, One is equal to twenty-four hours: 1 = 24 hours. To represent shorter periods of time, you can use the corresponding fractions.

• 1 hour = 1/24
• 1 minute = 1/(24*60)
• 1 second = 1/(24*60*60)

For example , 5 hours = 5/24 , 3 hours – 30 minutes = ( (3/24) + (30/(24*60)) ) and 1 hour – 50 minutes – 30 seconds = ( (1/24) + (50/(24*60)) + ( 30/(24*60*60) ) ) .Alternatively, you can also use the duration syntax to specify the amount of time: HH:MM:SS. For example, 1 hour – 1 minutes – 1 seconds = 01:01:01.

Alternatively you may type @ in the required cells and continue with the word date and hit enter . A calendar will pops up , set your required date on it . For time use the formula as =TIME(hour, minute, second) and hit enter.

Similarly, you can add today’s date much quicker. Just type @ in the required cells continue with the word today and hit enter. Google Sheets will recognize your prompt as Today’s date.

How to Add Time in Google Sheets- Quick Steps

1. Open your Google Sheets document.
2. Click on the cell where you want to insert the time.
3. Type the time in the desired format (e.g., 3:30 PM).
4. Press Enter, and the time will be inserted into the cell.

Time management is crucial, both in daily life and in spreadsheet mastery. In the dynamic world of spreadsheet management, Google Sheets stands out as a powerful tool for data manipulation and analysis. While basic arithmetic operations are straightforward to perform, dealing with date and time can be a bit tricky.